Child development experts tell us the most important time in a person’s life is between birth and 5 years old. That’s the time when you’re installing the operating system in the most sophisticated computer in the world: your own brain. The way the little tykes do it is through something we call “play.”
Three organizations around here help young kids do just that: Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, the Center for Early Intervention on Deafness on Berkeley and the Habitot Children’s Museum, which was born in Berkeley but has led a peripatetic life since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Habitot spent its first 22 years in the basement of Berkeley’s old Hink’s department store, but when the pandemic struck the state ordered the museum to close, and during the closure the building was sold to a developer who found a higher-paying tenant. Gina Moreland, Habitot’s founder/executive director, and her team hastily packed up all the one-of-a-kind, hands-on exhibits that Habitot is noted for and put them in storage for safety while they pondered what to do next.
Moreland is not someone who gives up easily. She reinvented Habitot as a mobile museum. She and her team began setting up Habitot’s mobilized exhibits and art and maker programs at popup locations in Berkeley, Oakland, Alameda, San Leandro, Hayward, Fremont, Livermore, San Ramon, Orinda, Pittsburg and Richmond.
In all, 42 popup events took place from 2021 to 2024. Kids enjoyed playing outdoors, which their parents felt was safer. The Mobile Museum events were a huge hit, with almost 10,000 parents and children attended them.
Habitot was able to open a temporary indoor location in 2023 on Emeryville’s Bay Street, presenting some of its signature exhibits: a rocket ship with mission control and a little town that included a fire station, grocery store, art studio, maker lab and infant toddler area.
Habitot’s exhibits aren’t made to be looked at; they’re enormous toys to be played with, and kids don’t even notice how much valuable stuff they’re being taught because they’re too busy having fun.
Take the firehouse, for instance — the child-sized fire station with a child-sized fire engine kids can climb on and drive features buttons children can press to activate the siren and pretend pumps they can use to “save” a “burning house” that has realistic-looking lights and “flames” coming out of the windows.
“Children’s imaginations are developing, and they love to take on the role of grown-ups and be heroes,” Moreland explains.
Genius, huh? Don’t you wish there had been something like this around when you were a little kid? More than 25,000 people came through Habitot’s doors in Emeryville over 18 months, but its lease wasn’t extended after last year.
This moveable feast can’t last forever, and Habitot desperately needs a permanent place to call home. Moreland has asked me to ask you to keep an eye out for an affordable and accessible site where she could establish Habitot as the East Bay’s children’s museum.
She couldn’t be looking at a worse time, with skyrocketing commercial rents and operating costs, but it’s not her fault; this situation was thrust upon her. In fact, it’s been a bad time for nonprofits in general lately. Federal subsidies have been drying up, which will probably accelerate under the new White House administration, and foundations are shifting their focus.
Last year alone the East Bay lost the Bay Area Children’s Theater; The Crucible industrial arts school, famous for its classes in glass-blowing; the California Shakespeare Festival, better known as Cal Shakes; and the JazzSchool had to shut down its conservatory program.
They were all part of what makes the East Bay the reason we like living here. They deserved to live a lot longer. So does Habitot.
If you hear of any promising new Habitot location or can help in any other way, like volunteering or a donation, please email Moreland at gina@habitot.org. At the risk of sounding picky, which she isn’t, she does have one small wish, but it’s not a deal-breaker: This time, she’d love to have at least part of the next site be outdoors.
In the meantime, Habitot will present some Mobile Museum popup events in Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda and other area cities again this year. Look for locations and dates online at habitot.org/locations-dates. It’s up to us, even if you don’t have any small children of your own. These kids are the only future we have.
Martin Snapp can be reached at catman442@comcast.net.