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GREENSBORO -- Ten years ago, the Greensboro Children's Museum tossed aside the "Do Not Touch" signs and let kids pretend they were firefighters, doctors, even grocery store clerks.

Now, the museum is breathing new life into its exhibits and has plans for, among other things, outdoor classrooms, a three-story treehouse and an Edible Schoolyard -- a seed-to-table gardening program designed to teach kids about where their food comes from.

The museum begins its 10th anniversary celebration Saturday with the grand opening of its new train exhibit. Birthday events continue through June and include a parade May 15, the opening of its refurbished health-care exhibit May 22 and a 5-kilometer run June 6.

But the museum has not been without its growing pains.

Attendance has dipped in recent years, and as the economy has tightened, so have the purse strings of donors.

A fundraising campaign began last year to help pay for the Edible Schoolyard, the first of its kind in a museum setting. But groundbreaking for the project, which was originally slated for May, has tentatively been pushed to September.

Unlike the other major museums in town, the Children's Museum receives no public financing, though last year it did ask the city for $500,000.

"Private donors have less dollars to donate, and that's a strain," says John Cross, chairman of the museum's board of trustees. "But I think that from the Children's Museum to the train depot (on the south end of Church Street), there's all this opportunity. It can be a true cultural center, and we are going to be one anchor of it. We have a lot of designs on the books and some green projects, and as soon as we get the funding for them, we're ready to go."

A time for fixups

Kids poke their heads through holes in the sheet concealing the train exhibit. The holes are about waist high for an adult but are perfect for a 7-year-old wanting to take a peek.

Workers are putting the finishing touches on the exhibit. When complete, it will feature a 12-foot-long replica of an 1897 steam engine. Kids will be able to stoke "coal" and pour water into the engine and watch steam come out. Betsy Grant, the museum's chief executive officer, says the previous exhibit, which has since been removed, had to be fixed monthly.

A number of other exhibits have been refurbished during the past year, among them the TIMCO airplane cockpit, featuring actual controls and seats, and the grocery store, where kids can pretend to scan boxes of food. The health-care exhibit is being worked on, and when it reopens next month, will boast a newborn nursery and dental area.

Last year, plans also were announced for a greenhouse, a sunflower or bamboo maze and an amphitheater to go up alongside the Edible Schoolyard.

Grant says she sees her institution as a place for "informal education."

"Children learn by touching, by tasting, by feeling and by playing," she says. "The Children's Museum is really a town square. Children come here to the museum, and they shop in the grocery store, they're learning math skills, they're developing oral language skills. It's not a place where you just have a bunch of balls and children jump up and down."

The museum has an annual budget of about $1.4 million. Forty-five percent of its income comes from admissions, memberships and facility rentals, the rest from private donors and special events.

Attendance in recent years has hovered around 130,000 to 135,000 -- down from about 150,000 in 2003 -- but roughly the same as in its first year.

The idea for the museum came about in 1990 when local builder Jerry Hyman noticed a brochure for the Exploratorium, a science museum, during a layover at San Francisco International Airport.

"It was a five-hour wait," he says. "So, I went to visit the Exploratorium. And that's where the seed was planted."

"From then on, anytime we went anywhere, Jerry said, 'Come on, let's go see the children's museum,' " his wife, Sue Hyman, says. "So, we went to the one in Puerto Rico, the one in Paris, museums all over the United States to get ideas."

After a fitful start during which Hyman struggled to get support for the project, he enlisted civic leader Cynthia Doyle to put together a team to study the feasibility of a museum. Fundraising took off, and in the three years before opening, organizers collected $4.6 million.

Hyman donated a building of his, the old Montgomery Ward store (now Triad Stage) on South Elm Street, for the project.

But in 1998, P. David Brown, president of Gate City Motor Co., offered a more convenient location -- a former car dealership on a three-acre lot at 220 N. Church St. The Joseph M. Bryan Foundation covered $1.2 million of the $1.5 million price tag for the property with the Gate City Motor Co. taking care of the rest.

Getting started

The doors opened May 15, 1999, and through the years the museum hosted several major traveling exhibits including "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood -- A Hands-On Exhibit,'' featuring a replica of the set from the PBS show; the History Channel Time Machine, a 48-foot-long "mobile museum" with exhibits on the founding fathers, engineering feats and the importance of historic preservation; and "Arthur's World," based on the children's book character.

In 2002, Child Magazine ranked it 36 out of the top 50 children's museums in the country.

But the place also hit a few stumbling blocks. The Cloud Nine Cafe and Yogurt Bar opened in 2001 but closed two years later. Another cafe, Georgie's, opened in 2005 and closed last year.

When the museum reported a deficit of $334,000 for fiscal year 2007, Cross asked the city for a $500,000 annual subsidy in September 2008, even though it is not publicly owned.

The reason: Cross says the museum attracts many visitors here and can serve as a driving force for development in the Cultural District.

Also, Cross says the deficit at the Greensboro Children's Museum was caused mainly by the depreciation of investments and the Church Street property.

A committee headed by Greensboro Public Library Director Sandy Neerman has been looking at ways museums and other cultural organizations in the city can collaborate to save money.

But other than that, the city has taken little action on the $500,000 request. City Council members say that in this year of penny-pinching, it's unlikely the museum will get the money.

"I can tell you that $500,000 for anything right now would be an extreme stretch," councilman Zack Matheny says. "I think the City Council members recognize the importance of the Children's Museum, and we certainly want it to continue to be a great asset to this city, but to add something for $500,000 to the budget right now would be very, very tough."

More to be done

Though museum officials are looking at ways to cut expenses, they plan to forge ahead with the improvements, albeit a bit more slowly than planned. Grant points to the improvements the Natural Science Center has made in recent years, the most visible of which has been the addition of the Animal Discovery Zoological Park, as an example to follow.

"For a long time, my understanding is that the science center would say to the children's museum, 'Well, we really wish we had what you all had,' " she says. "And now we're looking at the science museum and saying, 'We're really wishing we had what you have.' "

The Natural Science Center, which receives about $1 million annually in public financing, asked the city in February to hold hearings on the possibility of putting a $20 million bond referendum on the ballot for further expansion. Its director, Glenn Dobrogosz, says the facility still has a long way to go, pointing to peeling paint and crude signage as he walks through the exhibit areas. But attendance has risen about 40 percent to 272,000 since Animal Discovery opened in 2007.

Because the age group the Children's Museum targets is so young, Cross, the board of trustees chairman, says staying fresh is less of a challenge for it than it might be for other institutions. When the children grow too old for the museum, the next generation will come in.

That generational shift, Cross thinks, is also partially to blame for the decline in attendance in recent years. But he also believes the Edible Schoolyard and other projects can have a similar impact on the Children's Museum as Animal Discovery has had on the Natural Science Center.

"It'll help expand the age group we're going for, it's going to improve our repeat customers, and it's going to bring more field trips," he says.

Dobrogosz says he believes the Children's Museum has a good vision and that it and the Natural Science Center are a good complement to each other. Both he and Cross are quick to point out that they do not view themselves as being in competition with one other.

"When I first moved, I went there with my daughter a lot. She outgrew it, but she loved it," Dobrogosz says. "But they really hit a niche that we don't hit. They're early childhood education. They're kids and culture, and we're kids and creatures."

Cross says that in spite of the recent fiscal challenges, the museum has plenty of potential to play a leading role in the shaping of the Cultural District and downtown Greensboro.

"The economy is a challenge," he says. "But I think the way you overcome that is to offer a service or benefit to the community that's worthwhile enough to justify donations. We've got a new fire truck, a new train exhibit. The Edible Schoolyard will bring a higher profile to the cultural corridor when that is open.

"And I'm optimistic about going forward, even with the challenges that are out there."

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com