The Delaware Children’s Museum launched its first Sussex County fundraising event with 90 percent of the needed $11 million already raised. The event, a well-attended girl’s night out held at Kindle in Paynter’s Mill, was buoyed by a mood of anticipation. After a long road of fundraising, the museum is almost a reality. Julie Van Blarcom, executive director of the museum, said that donations really took off in the past 11 months. Despite the recession, state, federal and individual donations kept pouring in. “Parents want to do this for their kids,” she said.

Delaware has never had a children’s museum, causing parents to take their children to the nearby Baltimore Aquarium or Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute. Van Blarcom has championed a Delaware Children’s Museum for the past 10 years, seeing it move from a bare-bones storefront operation to its current incarnation. She said the museum expects 135,000 visitors annually, mostly Delawareans.

“We’re community-based,” she said. “We’re for Delaware.”

Planned for a location on Wilmington’s Riverfront, the museum will boast six exhibits and a creative studio. The exhibits will explore topics from ecology to finance using a range of interactive tools. In the “Stratosphere” exhibit, children will use video walls to create a forest with their own hands. The creative studio will spur children to paint, sculpt or weave freely.

Van Blarcom said children’s museums are the fastest-growing museum sector in America and have proven to be economic anchors for their communities. In the case of the Delaware Children’s Museum, she hopes to help revitalize the Riverfront.

“The Riverfront really needs us,” she said. The museum will provide 22 jobs, 13 of which will be full-time. A green structure, the museum will use the city’s resources efficiently and set the standard for local development. Kathleen Leebel, owner of event co-sponsor Concierge by the Sea, said the museum will contribute to the Riverfront’s overall prosperity. “The children’s museum will provide a substantial economic overflow to surrounding businesses,” she said.

Moms 4 Hire, a Lewes-based in-home daycare, also co-sponsored the event. Between the Kindle gathering and a similar event in Wilmington, the museum raised $40,000.

With its goal almost achieved, the Delaware Children’s Museum looks forward to a September 2009 opening. Until then, Van Blarcom and her staff are spreading the news and generating excitement. “It’s all about creative play, smart play,” she said.