Southport Magazine

Entering through the main door of the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Southport on a recent spring day, I was greeted by the sounds of hammering and laughter. It was a fitting introduction for my visit; both those sounds help tell the story of the work being done to make the museum more accessible and inclusive.

As Curator of Education Katy Menne explained, the hammering means a rack is being installed by the main desk, ready to hold a brand new set of eight brightly colored “sensory backpacks” to be used by visitors to the museum. 

“Sensory backpacks include things you can interact with on your visit to make it more enjoyable,” Menne said. “For example, if someone doesn’t like to sit still, or likes to carry something with them, you’ve got lots of different options to keep your hands busy.

“New environments can be scary no matter how old you are, or what your ability level,” Menne continued. “These backpacks can help ease the transition from familiar surroundings to new places, and create a more enjoyable experience.”

As the first Certified Autism Center in the state of North Carolina, the museum is doing some groundbreaking work on accessibility and inclusion, and the backpacks are just one part of the staff’s commitment to serving visitors with autism. 

The staff is also creating a “safe space,” tucked in a quiet corner of the museum, where a visitor can go and be by themselves and recenter during their visit. Safe spaces, with dim lights, soft surroundings and minimal sensory input, are often recommended for those with autism, behavioral challenges or learning difficulties. Menne is excited about what projects like this can mean to the museum’s visitors.

“Some people like sensory input, some like noise-cancelling headphones to stay calm, sometimes light is too much so there are sunglasses in the backpack, things to self-regulate,” she explained, pulling out various items from one of the backpacks.

The museum is also working to create a more immersive experience for the hearing impaired,  thanks to a new semi-guided video tour that includes spoken English, closed captions and American Sign Language (ASL). The video tour originally came about as a way to replace the in-person tours that were suspended due to COVID-19 restrictions, but the team quickly realized it was an excellent tool for those with hearing challenges. 

“This is a way to be more inclusive and reach more people, and share the rich maritime history and culture of this area,” Menne said.

One of the challenges in creating a more inclusive museum experience was finding the right expertise to help develop programs like these.

“I am not an expert in ASL or what we need for the vision-impaired or physically challenged, so we are partnering with the people and organizations that do know how to make our experience more accessibly,” she said.

The staff, headed by Museum Manager Lori Sanderlin, partners with organizations to make the museum more accessible to the blind and low vision community, for example, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Southport Lions Club as well as the Governor Moorehead School for visually impaired students in Raleigh.

The museum also partners with Cape Fear Community College, and received hands-on help and expertise for the sensory backpack project. The interns helped define what should go in the backpacks and how they would be used.

Talking to Menne, her passion and talent for this work is obvious … and it is earning her and the museum recognition even beyond this community. In October, Menne was named the 2020 recipient of the Emerging Museum Professionals Award, given by the Southeastern Museums Conference.

“Of course it was a huge honor and thrilling to be recognized for our work,” she said. “I am so grateful for the people I work with and the organizations that partner with us to make so much of this possible.”

She credits Sanderlin and the rest of the staff for being incredibly supportive of her ideas. “I pitch them ideas and they say ‘yep, great, let’s do this’ or ‘let try this instead’,” she said. “Lori [Sanderlin], our manager here, is so gung-ho about how can we make the museum experience better and more inclusive and reach more people.”

This idea of accessibility is front and center to the work Menne and the rest of the team are doing as the museum. They work with schools and community groups not just from Brunswick County, but New Hanover, Pender, Columbus and Robeson counties too. Physical access is a challenge for a lot of these outlying communities, so Menne often traveled to these areas to bring museum programs to them … until the pandemic changed that approach.

“Since COVID hit, we’ve tried with our digital programming to make our museum remotely accessible and inclusive as well. For example, if I’m reading a story, I’m also describing what pictures you’d be seeing, making the program more immersive for people with low vision or blindness, or even if it’s just challenging to see the images with the glare from the shiny pages,” she said.

Menne predicts it will remain challenging for school groups to travel to the museum, at least for the near future. So the question now is how can the museum staff work within these restraints and still be a vibrant, inclusive organization. While COVID certainly added some challenges for the museum staff, it has also helped the museum grow in unexpected ways. 

“This ASL tour was officially rolled out in November,” Menne said, “but we were working on it during our closure. The filming of this was right at the beginning of the lockdowns last spring. During the six months we were closed last year we really tried to focus on how we were going to implement this vision of accessibility and inclusion, so when we do reopen we have all of these incredible things ready to go.”

“The backpacks, for instance, have been ready since November, but we’ve only just put them out last week. We are so excited to be able to offer these,” she said.

Projects in the works include a fully guided ASL tour (the current one is semi-guided), plus working with 3D printing experts to get some of the delicate artifacts that can’t be handled recreated so visitors can hold a replica in their hands.

“Really, all of the things that we’re pushing forward with, anyone can enjoy them,” Menne said. “Whoever you are, whatever you bring that day, whatever your abilities or challenges, you’re going to learn, you’re going to have fun, you’ll be welcomed, you’ll be part of our crew.”

While they can’t guarantee there will be hammering, it’s safe to say there will always be big smiles and laughter as you tour this treasure of a museum.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum is located at 204 East Moore Street in Southport, NC. Admission is free and the public is welcome Tuesdays through Saturdays from 9 am 5 pm. The museum is following all recommend safety protocols for capacity, masks, social distancing and other requirements. Please be aware there is no designated parking lot for the museum; free public parking is available along all nearby streets. There is a wheelchair available for visitors if needed. Call the museum at (910) 477-5151 or visit https://ncmaritimemuseumsouthport.com for more information.