Grand Rapids and Muskegon welcome the National Tour of Traveling World War I Gallery next week. The exhibit will be at the Gerald R. Ford Museum on Monday, July 23, and at the USS Silversides Submarine Museum on Tuesday, July 24.
Waddell and Reed and Ivy Funds created the ambitious and unconventional acknowledgement of the firm’s seventy-fifth anniversary in partnership with the National World War I Museum. A custom eighteen-wheel “big rig” truck was transformed into a traveling gallery that will visit seventy-five communities across the country, stopping at a variety of local museums and cultural institutions to raise funds and awareness.
Dubbed the “Honoring Our History” tour, the unique traveling museum offers a free, interactive, and
educational experience designed in concert with the National World War I Museum–the first and only American museum solely dedicated to preserving the artifacts, history, and personal experiences of a war that brought dramatic impact and still echoes today. Funds raised at each stop will be divided equally between each local museum and the National World War I Museum, based in Kansas City, Missouri.
The traveling gallery features a variety of artifacts, videos, an authentic walk-through trench that
simulates the war environment, audio tracks, headlines, and historical descriptions. It allows visitors the chance to experience the tight conditions of trench warfare, see the relatively primitive tools, weapons, equipment and uniforms, amid sounds and sights of war one hundred years ago. Every visitor has the opportunity to make a financial donation to support the non-profit museum, through electronic forms via four iPads on board, or cash donations.
Source and photo: BELA Communications
