LUMBERTON — “When pigs fly.” That was the sentiment offered before the year 2000 when supporters of what is now known as the Exploration Station in downtown Lumberton asked when Lumberton would have a children’s museum.

Well, pigs are “flying” and the Exploration Station has been entertaining and teaching Robeson County’s children for more than 20 years.

With more than a dozen exhibits, the museum draws hundreds of Robeson County children, parents and educators every week. They come to hear the stories told by Pops, the talking tree. Speaking with a well-aged voice you’d expect to hear from a seasoned resident here in the county, Pops tells the tales of Robeson County that need to be told to the youngsters who may grow into the area’s future leaders. It’s appropriate that the rich history of the county is handed down just across the street from the Robeson County Library, a valued center of learning, and just down the street from Dick Taylor Plaza, named for Taylor, a longtime fixture in the business community in Downtown Lumberton. Taylor died in 2022 at the age of 94. The downtown Lumberton, Taylor knew 70 years ago, was vibrant and alive, thriving from the tobacco and textile industries.

That business acumen has appropriately seeped into “stations” of the Exploration Station, where children can act as grocery store shoppers; they can operate a cash register and stock shelves with food items.

Nearly all the exhibits inside the museum promote S.T.E.A.M. learning (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics).

The museum’s hands-on learning introduces S.T.E.A.M. concepts to children as young as toddlers on up to 8- or 9-year-olds. But really, parents and grandparents will be just as engaged in the exhibits.

Other favorites include the child-sized theater, complete with a well-dressed wardrobe room, and the massive pirate ship anchored prominently in the center of the museum.

Caregivers

Beyond creative learning for children, the museum makes its resources available to parents and caregivers by providing weekly resource training — now drawing 30-40 people per week — on topics such as SIDS, breast-feeding, child abuse and neglect as well as child focused classes such as setting up creative classrooms and teaching “Music and Movement” designed to help children with behavior, transitions and educational learning.

Summer camps and school visits

Exploration Station staff run weeklong summer camps that involve children both in the downtown facility and other learning environments such as the Robeson Planetarium and Science Center.

Staff also make visits to local grade schools to show and teach creative lessons such as the importance of hand washing using the glow paint coated “Germ Ball.” It’s all fun and games to pass the ball around the class … until the lights go out to reveal the glowing “germ-coated” hands.

The Exploration Station is operated by the Robeson County Partnership for Children Inc. which, according to its mission statement, collaborates “with local agencies to provide quality activities and resources for ALL children, birth to 5 years of age, their families, and caregivers. Smart Start – a public-private initiative that provides early education to improve the quality of child care – makes child care more affordable and accessible, provides access to health services, and offers family support.

“Robeson County Partnership for Children Inc. funds activities with a goal of ensuring that young children enter school healthy and ready to succeed. … Additionally, Robeson County Partnership for Children Inc. provides a NC Pre-Kindergarten program designed to provide a high-quality educational experience to enhance school readiness for eligible 4-year-old children.”

Funding to run the Exploration Station comes from a variety of sources, including its admission fees.

Admission to Exploration Station is $5 per child and $3 per adult. There is an annual family membership that allows children and parents to visit as many times as they would like.

But the majority of its funding comes from grants from local groups, businesses and agencies such as Kiwanis Club, the Lumber River United Way and many others, including the Ronald McDonald House Charities. That funding was helped along by Lisa and Kenneth Rust, local entrepreneurs who just recently sold their McDonald’s businesses in Robeson and Bladen counties.

Seven Ronald McDonald Houses exist in North Carolina, but in addition to supporting its houses, it has grants for local children’s organizations. “The little red boxes you see when you go through the drive-through or when you check out that people drop change in — usually they think of the houses that are supported with the hospitals in the state but they also go to community grants such as this and they primarily look at areas that support children, the arts, education, growth and those kinds of things,” Lisa Rust stated for a news story in 2017.

If you’d like to see the “pigs fly,” the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, call 910-738-1114.