A $1 million gift will help expand and enhance educational opportunities for the art museums of Colonial Williamsburg, bolstering programming currently serving more than 10,000 people per year.
The endowment was presented to Colonial Williamsburg by Susan and David Goode of Norfolk and will support efforts that include teacher workshops, tours and regular classes offered at the newly renamed Susan Goode Education Gallery in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, according to a Colonial Williamsburg news release.
An education team of two full-time employees and 40 volunteers and seasonal interns work to bring the programming to Colonial Williamsburg guests. That staff was behind adult tours and 420 programs and workshops in the Susan Goode Education Gallery for about 10,500 guests, school group students and teachers.
The team regularly hosts field trip tours from schools and makes contributions to the “Using Local History Resources in your Classroom” program.
“The art museums’ programming engages a vast segment of guests each year, leveraging their extensive collections toward our core mission of education,” Colonial Williamsburg President and CEO Colin Campbell said in the news release. “We’re extremely grateful to the Goodes — who are both art lovers and great friends to the institution — for enriching and sustaining that programming in perpetuity.”
David Goode, now retired, is a former chief executive officer for Norfolk Southern Corporation. The Goodes have supported arts and history programs across the state and are particularly interested in folk art, according to the release.
“David and I believe very strongly in the educational power of museums and that the arts are a vital force in our history,” Susan Goode said in the release. “Colonial Williamsburg’s museums are uniquely able to make that connection for future generations. We’re gratified to know that this endowment will support even more robust educational programs at the museum.”
Current educational programs include “Kids in Art,” a family program where guests follow guided tours of the DeWitt Wallace Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum. The tour ends in the Susan Goode Education Gallery, where kids craft their own self-portraits. There is also “Celebrate Quilts!” That program culminates with time in the Susan Goode Education Gallery where guests get a chance to ply for themselves.
“The results are individual folk-art masterpieces,” said Patricia Balderson, the Folk Art Museum’s education manager.
The gift from the Goodes coincides with plans for the first major expansion of the museum facilities since they opened in 1985. The expansion will add 8,000 square feet of new space for exhibits along with a new entrance and façade on South Nassau Street.
