Giving Rye is a feature series highlighting non-profits and community groups in and around the City of Rye. Today meet Katie Vernace of the Westchester Children’s Museum.
Your Name: Katie Vernace
Name of your organization: Westchester Children’s Museum
Your role: Board of Trustees, Vice President
MyRye.com: Tell us your organization’s mission
Vernace: The Westchester Children’s Museum is a vibrant, interactive learning space providing children, families and school groups the opportunity to nurture curiosity, enhance knowledge and ignite imagination through creative hands-on exploration. The Museum is committed to broadening knowledge of the arts and sciences, the environment, multiculturalism, and the local and global communities in an educational and recreational atmosphere.
How long have you operated in or around Rye?
Vernace: The Museum is located on the Playland Beach boardwalk in the historic landmark north bathhouse. Founded over 20 years ago by a group of educators and dedicated volunteers that recognized the need for this type of learning environment in the Westchester area, the Museum opened its doors in 2016 in a 6,000 square foot gallery and has since grown into 20,000 square feet of interactive space.
What programming or work is the organization best known for?
Vernace: In the last two years, the Museum has experienced a dramatic uptick in visitation and community and school engagement due to the installation of new exhibits, growth of staff, the introduction of a financial assistance membership program, and vibrant daily programming. Attendance has grown from 25k annually in 2022 to nearing 150,000 in 2025. The Museum currently has over 2,000 members with 20% representing our Family Access Membership. Additionally, the Museum welcomed over 5,000 students on field trips.
Looking forward to 2026, what will be your top initiatives?
Vernace:
- Breaking Down Barriers – The Museum remains focused on being a welcoming, enriching learning space for all children and their families and overcoming barriers to visitation ensuring that issues such as physical/learning abilities, transportation, language, or financial access should not be barriers to play, and all children in our Westchester community should have the opportunity to become lifelong learners and museum-goers. We are working on identifying funding sources to help us “Break Down Barriers” through initiatives such as community nights that offer free admission and bus transportation from local community centers to and from the museum, sensory friendly hours to support neurodiverse visitors, additional cultural events to highlight the beauty in the diversity of our community, and bi-lingual signage/programming.
- Toddler Beach – The museum is planning a full redesign and reimagining of its beloved Toddler Beach exhibit space. The exhibition was among the original experiences when the museum opened ten years ago and has been well-loved. It’s now time for a re-fresh! To oversee the redesign of Toddler Beach, the museum selected Learn’ique, a Rye-based designer with background in early childhood education and design from among a selective RFP process of exhibit designers from across the country. The new Toddler Beach will be designed for our youngest visitors and will be constructed with various textures, sounds, and sights to help develop cognitive and motor skills, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The campaign for this capital project has begun and we expect crawlers in the space by early summer 2026.
- With the Museum’s 10th anniversary of play in the North Bathhouse in 2026, there is so much to celebrate and yet so much more on the horizon for the Museum!
Tell us about the population you serve and how they can get involved with your programming and services.
Vernace: The Museum, located on the Playland Boardwalk in Rye, NY, is in a central location to serve all of Westchester County, along with southern Connecticut. We want all children and their families or caregivers in our community to have access to quality STEAM programming, as we know that our interactive exhibits and programs encourage play, imagination, and curiosity as a way of helping children build problem solving skills, confidence, collaboration, and communication. We recognize that not all families have equal opportunities to make this possible and we are working hard to eliminate barriers to play in our space. Our Family Access Membership program, which offers a 90% membership discount to families that qualify, is just the start. We are hoping to launch free access times, community nights with transportation, and discounts to our Toddler/Baby and Me classes in 2026.
Are you a 501(c)(3) non-profit with tax exempt status?
Vernace: Yes.
Looking back across 2025, what were your organization’s top achievements?
Vernace: The museum has come a long way since I moved to Rye in 2015. 2025 was an incredible year in so many ways! We will have nearly 150,000 visitors come through our doors, which is over a 400% increase since fiscal year 2022-2023. We have over 2,300 memberships, of which 22% represent those that qualified for our Family Access Membership discount. It is hard not to read those stats and feel incredibly proud of what the team has accomplished. This growth was made possible because of a few key drivers:
- The Educations and Public Programming team has created programming that is educational, enriching, and dynamic. We offer STEAM programming seven days a week, along with special thematic events (Halloween, New Year’s Eve, World Space Day, Grandparents Day and Kindness Day to name just a few). We also started offering Baby & Me and Toddler & Me programs, which provide specifically designed early childhood experiences for our youngest visitors and their caregivers. These sensory-rich, low-pressure sessions, take place on weekend mornings before the museum opens to the public, and promote early learning, socialization and caregiver bonding in a welcoming environment.
- Several new exhibits opened in 2025, including the Physics Lab at the Fierstein Family Gallery. The Physics Lab introduces basic concepts of physics – force, motion, speed, momentum, and gravity – to kids and their adults through the centerpiece art sculpture, Micah’s Gravitram, along with a 20-foot-long Ball Launch and a Magnetic Raceway. The museum also opened a new art exhibit, Keep Our Sea Plastic Free, through a partnership with The Nicholas Center. The Nicholas Center supports Autistic individuals in building critical life skills. Created by young adults from the Nicholas Center, the exhibit transforms discarded materials into vibrant sea life, featuring more than 75 jellyfish made from plastic bottles and a three-foot metallic shark crafted from cans. This collaboration builds on our ongoing relationship with The Nicholas Center, whose participants volunteer weekly as museum playworkers.
How can local residents support your organization?
Vernace: There are many ways for local residents to become involved with the museum, whether it is by becoming a member and enjoying our daily programming (we love that we see familiar faces regularly at our music & movement classes!), providing financial support through donations, or volunteering your time to enhance the visitors experience while at the museum.
What local Rye residents and area businesses have been the longest, steadiest supporters of your organization?
Vernace: We are deeply grateful to the Rye community for its ongoing support over many generations. Many of the founding families of the museum are from Rye and our current membership, daily visitors, and members of our Board of Trustees are populated by Rye residents!
Tell us about you:
How long have you been in your current role?
Vernace: I have been involved with the museum for over seven years. Before joining the museum’s board, I was simply a grateful visitor. It offered my toddlers a safe, creative place to play and a chance for me to meet new friends. Shortly thereafter, I decided to volunteer with the organization and quickly learned its broader impact, not only as a hub for young children’s first social interactions but also as a vital resource where thousands of students explore science and the arts. I joined the board just about three years ago and now serve as vice president.
As a board member, I primarily focus my efforts on expanding the reach of the museum and the breadth of its educational exhibits and programming. I want more children in Westchester to be able to experience even more STEAM activities in our space. I am proud to be playing a part in inspiring lifelong learners from all across Westchester County.
Is the role full time or part time? Paid or volunteer?
Vernace: Volunteer.
Where did you grow up?
Vernace: I grew up on Long Island.
Where do you live and how many years have you lived there?
Vernace: My family moved to Rye ten years ago from NYC, just as my youngest son was born. He is now in 5th grade and my oldest is in 8th grade. Time truly flies!
Thanks Katie!
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