The Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum’s annual gala fundraiser, A Night For The Museum, has raised over $80,000.
Executive Director Linden Roberts, who only took up the job in May 2019, says it was a great opportunity to meet and thank those who help keep the museum operating.
“It ensures that we can open the doors on a daily basis, [and] it ensures we can deliver programs to school groups,” she says.
“Our mandate is not to charge the full cost of a program to a school group, [and] as an organization that gains funding from events such as this, the return to the population is we try very hard to keep our pricing down to something that people can afford,” she adds.
With a 2019 operating budget of just over $1.4 million, half of that comes in the form of grants from a number of partners. Roberts says with the museum not currently facing financial peril, she remains optimistic that the museum still has the ability to become a centrepiece for the region.
“The idea that we can give high quality, uncurated, memorable experiences not only to the people of the area but visitors to the area and to make Grande Prairie a place to put on the map.”
Over 250,000 people have been through the museum since 2015.