COVID-19 was both a funeral and a rebirth for the Children's Discovery Museum of the Desert in Rancho Mirage.

The museum had been opened for more than two decades until last March when COVID-19 hit.

Like other museums, it had to close its doors to the public. It was able to offer some virtual programs; however, in October, it could no longer afford to pay the staff, forcing layoffs.

“The museum remains closed,” Cindy Burreson, interim executive director, said. “This museum is sort of an anomaly. Eighty-five percent of our income is earned from admissions, sales, and so forth. During the pandemic, we lost that revenue stream.”

The museum did not have cash reserves adequate to keep it afloat, Burreson said.

She is now trying to shape the museum’s new post-pandemic future.

“I’ve done a virtual tour with our design partners to look at our exhibits,” she said. “Probably 80% of our exhibits are original to when the museum opened, well past their life span.”

 They are now reviewing which exhibits should be kept and which should be removed.

“We’re going to be doing two executive workshops with the museum’s executive committee and myself to really figure out the vision, the messaging and sort of what the future looks like for the museum,” she said.   

Exactly when the museum will reopen depends on the community’s support and how much money can be raised , she said.

There are currently three buildings.

“We anticipate completely re-imagining the first building, our main building,” Burreson said. “We will have new exhibits and new sections. We want to re-open with it really revitalized. It hasn’t been in a long time. We want our donors to have something to stand behind, to really have a reason to donate.”

These were all changes that were needed a long time ago, Burreson said.

“If the pandemic hadn’t happened, none of this would have been put in motion,” she said. “We would have (been) resting on our laurels, doing as we’ve always done.”

She regrets that the staff members lost their jobs.

“But how do we learn from the past?” she asked. “How do we appreciate the past, the philanthropy that was the story of this museum?”

The community united more than 20 years ago to raise the money for the museum, knowing that it would be a valuable educational asset.

“We’re in that same boat again,” Burreson said. “We’re now the new generation of visionaries taking this on. How do we make it better?”