the young man named Ernesto who first visited on a field trip when he was 8. Coming from an economically disadvantaged family, he was so awestruck by the kindness and magic he found that he vowed to work there one day. Two days after his 16 th birthday, before he even had a driver’s license, he walked in and landed a job, staying with the museum through high school and college. “The people part of it, the individual part of it,” Wells said, “is something I never could have imagined.” This deep commitment to every child is the museum’s driving force. Access, for Wells, is a multifaceted concept that underpins every inch of the museum. It’s physical, ensuring a child in any size wheelchair can roll right up to the garden beds. It’s developmental, designing exhibits that engage and serve a range of ages. And it is profoundly economic. Through its “Every Child” program, the museum provided free or reduced admission to 116,000 of its nearly 400,000 visitors last year. It’s also about creating a welcoming space for families who might otherwise feel excluded, like those with children on the autism spectrum, by providing free passes and special visiting nights. “We say, ‘Come and try the museum,’ because this place is indeed for every child,” Wells said. That level of accessibility would be impossible without a bedrock of institutional support. Phoenix’s major philanthropic organizations have been long-time champions, a relationship Wells doesn’t take for granted. “The major foundations in town have been champions, and we try really hard to be good stewards of their money,” she said. Among them, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust has been a key partner, investing not just in the museum’s programs but in Wells’s leadership by selecting her as a Piper Fellow in 2018. It’s this kind of backing that makes the museum’s mission possible. “Part of the incredible amount of access that we provide is made possible by some significant and generous foundations,” Wells said. “They recognize for us to have a really healthy city, kids need to grow up and be healthy people.” For Wells, part of that health comes back to one thing: how we treat each other. “We have a big focus on character development, and one of the planks that we’re focusing on is kindness — that COVER STORY 48 | FRONTDOORS MAGAZINE “ We have a big focus on character development, and one of the planks that we’re focusing on is kindness.”

we really need to, all of us, think about how to be more kind and how to show up in the world in ways that our children would be proud of,” she said. “Our children are watching. We need to be the adults that our children will be proud of, and that our parents would be proud of, too.” Now, Wells stands on the brink of realizing the museum’s full, original vision. Bolstered by a $5.37 million voter- approved earmark and a $16.5 million capital campaign, a 33,000-square-foot expansion is underway. “We’re bringing in incredible exhibit designers, artists, fabricators — it’s gonna be really amazing,” she said. The project will add six to eight new exhibit spaces, a dedicated early literacy center, rooftop experiences FRONTDOORS MAGAZINE | 49 and, finally, a preschool — a dream since the museum’s inception. Set to open in 2027, the preschool will be run in partnership with Valley of the Sun YMCA and primarily serve low-income families, addressing a critical childcare desert in downtown Phoenix. “It’s kind of my life’s work getting to this place where I can tie a bow on it. We’re almost to the finish line of the things we really wanted to do,” Wells said. Looking back — and forward — Wells remains grounded in the power of play, possibility and simple acts of kindness. The world has changed since the museum opened 17 years ago, but the awe a child feels entering the noodle forest has not. Her hope now is to ensure this legacy of wonder and goodness endures, to build a foundation so strong that “whoever is after me can do what they need to do based on the work that I did.” It is, in the end, the ultimate act of a founder — and a mother: creating an opportunity for others to thrive. To learn more, visit childrensmuseumofphoenix.org . “ We’re almost to the finish line of the things we really wanted to do.” More room to play is on the way at the Children’s Museum of Phoenix. This rendering showcases the vision for an expansion that will bring engaging new and reimagined exhibits as well as a preschool.