Admission to visit a local museum, zoo or botanical garden can run about $10- to $30 per person, depending on the venue. The total adds up quickly for a family.
In an effort to welcome people who might not be able to afford it, more than a dozen museums and other cultural sites in Northeast Ohio provide opportunities to attend for free or less than $5 as part of the nationwide initiative Museums for All.
Anyone who receives Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits is eligible for Museums for All, which has added more than 1,400 venues across the country since its launch in 2014.
Word about the program is spreading, according to Elena Bell, marketing director for the Akron Zoo.
“We get a lot of messages and comments of like, ‘Hey, is this a thing?’ Or, ‘Hey, are we able to use our EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) card for any discount?’ And then we're able to share more about the Museums for All program,” Bell said.
Akron Zoo welcomed more than 8,000 guests last year as part of Museums for All – more than double the year prior. Through that program, zoo admission is $3 for eligible visitors.
Anyone can attend the zoo for free on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day and Election Day. The zoo also provides free admission on designated Inclusion Days, a partnership with Summit County Developmental Disabilities Board, to raise awareness about developmental disabilities.
“Last year we had record-breaking attendance for those days,” Bell said.
Kid-friendly places like zoos, children’s museums and other spots to interact with nature and science are some of the most-attended venues in the Museums for All program.
The Children’s Museum of Cleveland offers $2 admission with Museums for All, and between 11,000 to 14,000 guests utilize that opportunity annually, according to Hattie Kotz, the museum’s director of marketing and development.
The children’s museum also offers free memberships to people living nearby in Cleveland’s Central, AsiaTown and Midtown neighborhoods, and at various community events throughout the year.
“It's part of an overall look at access,” Kotz said.
Alleviating cost as a barrier to entry is just one part of making visitors feel welcome. Another major way the children’s museum aims to be inviting is through its hands-on design.
“It’s not what you typically may think of as a museum where your kid’s going to run up and touch something and alarms [are] going to go off,” Kotz said.
Staff have tested items throughout the museum to make sure they aren’t breakable. To serve visitors with sensory needs, the museum also offers kits with noise-canceling headphones and a quiet room.
The Children’s Museum of Cleveland and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History also send staff outside of the museum to engage with community members.
“We’re not just opening our doors and expecting people to come to our museum,” said Saleem Choudry, senior director of museum services at CMNH.
CMNH also participates in Museums for All, offering $1 admission through the program. In January, about 1,000 people utilized that benefit.
“It’s a little bit higher than what we did in 2024, and we've seen an increase in attendance numbers since we've had our grand opening in December,” Choudry said, referring to the museum’s $150 million renovation.
This year CMNH also expanded another program that provides free admission to residents of Cleveland, East Cleveland, Brooklyn, Euclid, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights and Warrensville Heights. Originally, free admission was offered just on Sundays, but now it is available to residents of these communities on Saturdays and Sundays.
Another place Cleveland residents can attend free any day of the week is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Rock Hall offers this, as well as the Museums for All program with $1 admission for those who qualify. In 2024, those programs combined to bring in about 12,500 visitors.
“It is absolutely about removing the financial barrier for the folks that have significant burdens, or that, you know, live so close and they should be able to just come on down and enjoy when they can,” said Kathryn Clusman, director of education and community engagement at the Rock Hall.
Like other arts and cultural organizations, Rock Hall staff also pay attention to additional ways to be a welcoming place. Those include using symbols on signage that can be understood by people who speak different languages, training staff in visitor engagement and hosting free outdoor concerts in the summer.
“Rock ‘n’ roll is something that was created from diverse musicians, diverse artists, and it is something that is for everybody,” Clusman said. “A huge focus for us is making sure that this is a place where anybody can feel welcome, and anyone can come and learn and engage and listen.”
