INVESTMENTS IN EXHIBITS: A GIANT Reimagination!

After 18 months of planning, development, and construction, Please Touch Museum reopened one of its most beloved exhibits on December 15, 2021.

Food & Family, brought to you by GIANT, expanded the traditional children’s museum grocery store experience to increase multigenerational visitor engagement and approach learning through play in an entirely new way.

In the reimagined exhibit, children explore an open-ended learning landscape. Through three interconnected zones, children discover the journey of food from source to gathering place and its importance in cultures, communities, and traditions. The experience inspires children to be part of a multicultural community while using their imagination through creative role-playing opportunities.

In addition to “shopping” the aisles in the grocery store, children can also become “employees” in the store, wearing specially marked aprons and providing customer service as a stock person, checkout cashier, or working in the in-store pizzeria.

With food “purchased” in the grocery store, children work together in a hybrid home and industrial kitchen to prepare food to share with others in the festival area. There, friends and neighbors come together for a block party — complete with a grilling station, a food vendor cart, and game tables with tic-tac-toe and checkers. After all, food is more festive when we enjoy it with friends.

$1.3M INVESTMENT

3,650 SQUARE FEET

3,500 PROPS ROTATE IN THE EXHIBIT

Food & Family was made possible by a $1.2 million gift by The GIANT Company and $100,000 from Councilmember Curtis Jones, Jr.