Grantee Spotlight: The Trailhead Children’s Museum
Play that fills a gap
“This. Is. PARADISE!”
That’s how one young visitor summed up the Trailhead Children’s Museum, a nonprofit offering youth indoor recreation built around art and play.
“Play is so essential to life, from the time you’re born to the time you die,” Trailhead Executive Director Sarah Broadwell said. “It helps kids learn about themselves, their friends and the world around them. It helps them practice and rehearse social situations. It helps them learn how to collaborate.”
“In the age of AI,” she said, “it helps them develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.”
The museum is designed for every kind of kid: indoor, outdoor and indoor-outdoor.
“We’re trying to fill that niche for kids who love both things, or maybe they’re not into biking and they need a place to fit in,” Broadwell said. “Or maybe they love biking, but they get exposed to art or some sort of game or interaction at the Trailhead.”
Leveraging funds to spread fun
Through the 2026 MetRec Recreation Grant Program, the Trailhead received $20,800 for its Arts in Recreation program. The operations money rented additional indoor program space, funded a staff cost-of-living adjustment and expanded the summer program assistant into a full-time seasonal role.
Over the summer, a single Trailhead classroom serves 40 to 50 kids a day and doubles as the birthday-party and board room. The Elk Avenue location stays busy and can only hold so many people at once.
Youth activities and camps fill up quickly in the district, and the community consistently notes the need for more slots. By renting a room at the Crested Butte Center for the Arts this summer, the Trailhead served more children and, importantly, older children looking for a more “grown up” setting.
“This grant is so impactful because it expands our capacity to do more stuff like that outside of the museum walls,” Broadwell said.
In an effort to serve more families down valley, the Trailhead hosted art pop-ups at Gunnison’s free Sunday music series and augmented some Super Saturday Storytime events with the Gunnison Library.
“Collaborations are so central to our success,” Broadwell said.
Camp groups help build sets for Crested Butte Mountain Theatre, Gunnison Valley Mentors participants join programs and events for free, and the museum runs a bike-decorating station at the Adaptive Sports Center’s annual Bridges of the Butte event.
Centering affordability amid increased cost of living
Payroll is the museum’s largest expense, and Broadwell credits staff for the experiences that keep families coming back. The cost-of-living adjustment helps the Trailhead keep pace with inflation without passing cost on to families.
“We don’t want to just pile it all onto our clients,” she said. “Some people can do that, but not everybody can. There’s such a spectrum of people we serve.”
Many families rely on Trailhead programs as childcare, and Broadwell wants that care to be meaningful. Keeping services accessible and awesome requires time to think, plan and fundraise.
Turning the summer program assistant into a full-time, seasonal role meant Trailhead leadership could step away from day-to-day tasks to focus on development, school-year programming and partnerships.
“We were in survival mode for so long,” Broadwell said. “Now we’re at this tipping point where it’s time to start thinking bigger and longer ahead.”
Photos courtesy of The Children’s Trailhead Museum.
