From the MAH's Executive Director: Robb Woulfe

As a nonprofit organization, part of our mission each and every day is to bring people together around art, history, and culture to build a stronger, more connected community.

Although we cannot bring people together physically during this crisis, we have been working on ways to bring our community together online through film screenings, virtual exhibitions, and educational programming. In response to the shelter-in-place orders, we have had to cancel live events through May.

We have explored many different options to offset the significant financial impacts of the museum’s indefinite closure and related cancellations, and to ensure a sustainable and resilient MAH now and into the future. This has led to the difficult but necessary decision to implement cost-cutting measures, effective this week. These include reducing our workforce through layoffs and reduced hours, curtailing nonessential spending, and identifying other cost containment actions.

As we are forced to scale back, we are also taking the time to look forward to how best the MAH can serve and support our diverse community—from our members, guests, partners, and stakeholders to our artists, storytellers, and cultural creators—in the future. We are looking at new admission-free policies for the MAH, expanding our exhibition space beyond the museum walls, balancing our strong participatory programming with thought-provoking and awe-inspiring works by professional artists from near and far, and inviting our cultural partners to use our space as a resource to further their own missions.

Together with our board, we will do everything in our power to serve and support our community through this extraordinary time, and the reconnecting and rebuilding that comes next. Financial gifts are welcome and greatly appreciated. Once it is safe and prudent to do so, we look forward to welcoming everyone back to the MAH, and hope you will join us in continuing our work of uplifting the voices, traditions, and stories of Santa Cruz County.

We stand with our community, and our thoughts are with you and your families.

Robb Woulfe

Executive Director