Champions of Character - Joanne Morrell
By Kevin Doel

A few years ago over lunch, Joanne Morrell shared her dream with me for a children’s museum. I may be guilty of not grasping the big picture, or of “thinking small” because now that Joanne’s vision for the Kansas Children’s Discovery Center is featured on a Coming Soon board at the southwest edge of Gage Park, anyone can see that Joanne dreams big.

Joanne, however, says the original idea came from her husband, Noble.

“People talk about ‘my dream becoming a reality’ but this is really misleading. It wasn’t my dream -- I was the right person at the right time. After careful research, it was obvious how much our community needed something like this and how not having an interactive facility for children in a community this size was tragic. This has always been (for me) about far more than “just” a children’s museum. It’s the bigger picture of building a community by bringing a win to Topeka and enhancing our capital city. We want to be part of making it even better -- for our children and our children’s children.”

As with anything, she says, there were key pivotal moments that allowed the project to keep moving forward – a series of “tests.” The first test was running the numbers -- is this something viable and sustainable?

“Personally, I had no desire to spend time, energy and resources on something that wasn’t going to be here in 10 years. I also knew that nobody else would, either. So we really put the numbers and historical evidence available to us to the test. The more we researched, it was like – hey, when done right, children’s museums are really successful and great assets to their communities.

The second test was “can we find a champion?” to help drive the effort, which came when Kent and Susan Garlinghouse became enthusiastic supporters of the effort. They also managed to recruit an outstanding board of directors, which Joanne calls “the most amazing, dedicated and brilliant group.”

Next was the “money problem” -- could they raise money for it, especially during the worse economic crisis since the Great Depression?

“I knew that if we couldn’t raise $100,000 for planning/research, there was no point in embarking on a $6M campaign. We surpassed that goal with the great support of our Fab Families, who each gave $1,000 or more to get this off the ground. It was a very exciting milestone.”

So then came the hard job of raising serious money. With two months to go toward hitting a goal for a matching grant, they had $1 million to raise and no idea how that was going to happen.

“I remember lying in bed at night thinking…praying…well, if this is something the community really wants, it will happen. At that point when the odds are so against you, you have to let go, trust the process and trust that whatever happens is for the best.”

Joanne and the board went on a full-court press and, with great exposure by the Topeka media, they raised more than $1 million in two months despite the economic doldrums the community faced.

The city of Topeka should give Joanne Morrell and her team a standing ovation for the strength of character and perseverance in bringing the promise of “Serious Fun” to the Capital City.