Spring in a box took its inspiration from the hugely successful Summer in a Box 2020 collective partnership. The project worked with partners at a very local level and successfully delivered 1050 activity packs to vulnerable families across Suffolk.
Funded generously again by Suffolk County Council and The Association for Suffolk Museums, the project worked with different museums to develop creative family activity pack for the most vulnerable families in our county. The packs were self-contained, with art materials and paper to allow the widest access to creative culture. The Museum partners were Gainsborough’s House, The National Horse Racing Museum, The Long Shop Museum, Lowestoft Maritime Museum, Ipswich Museum, Moyse’s Hall Museum and West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village.
The partners that supported the programme and distributed the packs were Suffolk Family Carers, Pink Orange, Community Action Suffolk, Abbeycroft Leisure, Sharing parenting and the local food banks in Lowestoft and Sudbury. All the partners were closely linked with the local communities reinforcing the museums’ community connections.
The packs reflected the variety of content and creativity in the museums and were focused on encouraging families to explore their immediate surroundings, for example, Lowestoft’s pack featured local activity trails for families. Ipswich created a pack for the local Roma community that incorporated mask making. All the packs will remind the families that museums will be there to welcome them face to face soon.
Each pack contained a postage franked evaluation postcard, designed by Rock, paper, scissor, to assist with getting some feedback from the packs.