Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg is planning a birthday celebration this week designed to reintroduce the 25-year-old center to the community.
The celebration kicks off Monday Sept. 9 with a private lunch for the center’s founding board and staff members, as well as other community leaders who helped bring Whitaker to Harrisburg.
Tuesday will bring a free-admission birthday bash in the Whitaker’s science center, followed by a daily drumbeat of events leading up to a block party on North Third St. on Sept. 13 and a final celebration on Sept. 14.
The goal is to reacquaint people with the 130,000 square-foot center and all it has to offer, said Mary Oliveira, who became Whitaker’s CEO in November 2023.
“Not that I want to continue to lean into the pandemic — we’re four years out of that — but it did take its toll,” she said.
The birthday: Whitaker opened at the corner of Third and Market streets in Harrisburg on Sept. 9, 1999, but the concept for a center blending science and the arts was born in the 1980s.
The center is named for late AMP Inc. founder Uncas Whitaker and his wife, Helen Whitaker, whose charitable foundations gave more than $8 million toward the project.
Former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed also was a major proponent for the center, one of just a few centers nationwide that combine science and the arts.
What’s next: Oliveira is overseeing initiatives designed to burnish the center’s appeal to a new generation of visitors.
The efforts include a survey this spring of about 35,000 people in the Whitaker database.
The survey showed a strong base of support for the center among Baby Boomers and Gen X but opportunities to cultivate ties with Millennials and Gen Y, Oliveira said.
It could mean, for example, tweaking the center’s hours so they are friendlier to working families, Oliveira said.
She also wants the center to offer more outreach to underserved and rural communities.
“The challenge is trying to find a great list of ingredients that can mix together, that’s appealing for as many of those individuals and those groups as we can,” Oliveira said. “It’s a challenge, but it’s an exciting challenge.”
