Hmong Cultural Center Museum and Library

The Hmong Cultural Center museum offers both guided tours and walk-in visits that teach about Hmong History, the Hmong Cultural Heritage and Hmong Folk Arts Traditions. The Legacy grant will support a part-time tour guide position, a new full-time museum marketing position and a consultant to work on a new website for the museum, a consultant to improve museum lighting, the expansion of museum space, the purchase of additional items for museum display as well as new museum furniture, the printing of museum brochures and curriculums for school groups, the acquisition of additional library resources and increased marketing efforts all of which will assist the center in reaching greater numbers of the public with educational outreach programming including group tours, walk-in visits and resources related to the historical, cultural and folk arts heritage of Hmong Minnesotans.

The tour guide position and the new museum marketing position will help the museum reach many more schools, organizations, workplaces and other groups with guided tours as well as reach additional walk-in visitors interested in learning about the cultural heritage of Hmong Minnesotans. An attractive and user-friendly new website dedicated to the museum will also significantly enhance the museum's ability to reach potential visitors, increase the number of school and other group tours and build fee income to promote the long-term sustainability of the museum. Enhanced lighting in our museum will improve the visitor experience as people are better able to view the educational display panels and extensive artwork included in the museum. HCC will lease additional space to expand its museum in its building and further enhance the tour group and walk-in visitor experience with additional educational exhibits in the new space. The museum will also acquire additional objects and art for display as part for the project and acquire new furniture such as display cases for cultural objects. New museum brochures will be produced and printed to promote the museum. Educational curriculums tied to museum exhibits will be printed for distribution to visiting school groups. The museum includes a resource library that includes an extensive collection of books, theses, dissertations, journal articles and newspaper articles related to the Hmong cultural heritage, history, and folk arts traditions. Visitors to the museum who wish to learn more about Hmong culture are invited to visit the library for additional resources. Grant funds will help the museum purchase additional books and other resources to update its existing library collection related to Hmong history, culture and folk arts that are available to visitors for research and other educational purposes. Finally, grant funds also will help HCC significantly increase its marketing of the museum with the goal of increasing the number of group tours and walk-in visitors over the course of the two year grant period.