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the National Medal for Museum and
Library Services is the nation's highest

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honor for libraries and museums that are
serving their communities in exceptional

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ways boo feel youth museum director
Patsy roblin and community member Lauren

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Collins traveled to Washington from
malden Missouri to receive the national

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medal and spoke to IMLS about how the
museum impacts the community the city of

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Malden is about 4,700 people the museum
opened its doors in 1996 we have about

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30,000 guess a year which is pretty
remarkable for a community our size we

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have guests that travel from all over
the region including Northeast Arkansas

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and Illinois and Tennessee we're a
hands-on science center so all of our

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exhibits are science or math based you
know even if you go into our Lewis and

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Clark exhibit what we're trying to do is
teach the kids about botany or naturally

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naturalism and that kind of thing the
AmeriCorps program it's a it's a

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national program it's a volunteer
service program it offers a small living

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stipend based on the number of hours
that you complete and a scholarship for

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college my role is that I am a full-time
member and we do hands-on science and

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math education in the schools and inside
the museum when do you work shops

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after-school programs festivals that
sort of thing the way that the program

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works is I get to go find all of these
great wonderful young people who have a

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passion for education or working with
children or for science or for some

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other reason and they get to come and be
a part of what we do and there's two

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great things about this one is that we
serve these little kids and we allow

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them to actually do science so they're
getting dirty they're making slime there

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you know shooting catapults and doing
all of those kinds of things but then we

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also have these great young people that
get a chance to kind of figure out what

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they want to do with their life when I
started the program of

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I had super short bubblegum pink hair
and I was extremely loud and extremely

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colorful I'm still pretty colorful but I
I did it more of like as humor and to to

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be attention-grabbing and I really
didn't have that much confidence though

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I put all the confidence into the acting
silly and then as I got like a

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leadership role it taught me like so
much about myself and I know now that

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I'm fantastic with children and I just I
love serving and I love working with the

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kids hands-on and teaching them and
seeing how excited they get about the

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science and what they're learning you
know we do have a lot of exhibits in the

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museum but we do a lot of activities
that you would normally find in a big

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museum so our AmeriCorps members are
actually actors we do a play called the

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three little pigs and their cousin
shakin bacon which is an earthquake

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science activity it's very fun very
interactive and it's also educational

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Lauren is also our lead mad scientist so
she does you know different science

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demonstrations for big and small groups
as many as I think she has done a

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presentation in front of 230 people
before or just a group of 10 you know

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people that come in we're in a in one of
the worst areas of the country and there

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aren't a lot of jobs you know it's not
like you know Lauren can go out and find

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a job in a factory or or even working in
a convenience store I mean we're a where

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you know we have two traffic lights in
town there aren't enough jobs for the

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people that live there and but
technology and science and math are

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areas where people are always needed and
it's the foundation of the universe if

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we can teach kids how this little thing
works in a in a simple fun way it's

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going to create a passion for science
and math in them and it's going to be a

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way to either make mulled in a better
place or to get them out of town

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into a place where they're going to be
able to raise a family and and you know

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have a great life um every day we are a
part of the after school program at our

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elementary school they're in town and we
do science with them and then on the

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weekends our AmeriCorps members who
serve at the Museum do science

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activities for the kids or they'll put
on the astronaut suit and they'll walk

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around and they'll talk to the children
but I found that what the kids get most

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out of it is more of like a mentor
because most of us are at this perfect

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age where the kids still really look up
to us you know we're not an adult yet

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but we're not one of them and so it's
like they want to be like us and for us

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to give them strong role models who are
teaching them you know you want to learn

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you want to continue your education and
this can be fun and they're starting to

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think hey maybe science can be fun hey
maybe I do want to do this and so for us

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to be such a small community and to have
so many youth volunteers it's an amazing

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thing and it's going to help us when
we're growing up to understanding you

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know giving back and then it helps the
community by the service that we provide