Free family fun: HoCo public libraries offer passes to many places of interest

Life gets in the way sometimes and people get busy. Sometimes traveling far away may not be an option for families, but memories for children are important to make, and it’s always fun to teach them a thing or two along the way.

Statewide, a local family has taken their kids to the Atlanta Zoo. Years later, they took them to the Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences, and they didn’t have to pay a dime for admission.

How did they do it? They checked out passes from their library.

The process is simple. Sign up for a library card, and you now have access to almost a dozen different museums and businesses, and all of Georgia’s state parks and historic sites.

Once you have that library card, all you have to do is ask the circulation desk. As long as the library is part of the PINES Network (by the way, all three libraries in Houston County are part of this network,) then they can issue the passes.

You have one week to make the trip after checking out the passes, but if you can’t make it right away, no worries. You have the option to renew the passes for another week. All you have to do is call the library.

Currently, the libraries in Perry, Centerville, and Warner Robins cover admission to 11 unique sites: The Atlanta Zoo, Georgia State Parks, Georgia Historic Sites, Go Fish Education Center, Chattahoochee Nature Center, Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences, Tubman Museum, The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, The Worlds of Puppetry Museum, The Michael C. Carlos Museum, and The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.

The Library also offers a discounted rate for the Georgia Aquarium.

There are limitations, of course.

For example, passes at the Atlanta Zoo are limited to three free passes. The Macon Museum of Arts and Sciences limits you to four, and Georgia Historic Sites limits you to two.

Houston County Public Libraries says this is a great opportunity to get out there and make memories with your family. James Floyd, the branch manager of the Perry branch talked about what the library hopes to accomplish with this program.

“This [program] really highlights some interesting places in Georgia, where families can go together to learn and have a good time,” Floyd said.

We spoke to the Houston County family, who requested to stay anonymous. Their mother reminisced on their time bringing her daughters to the zoo. Photos they showed us featured her kids smiling and in awe of the animals in their exhibits. The parents enjoyed the experience as much as their children did, but they stressed that it was much more meaningful for their children to have that opportunity to get out there and learn, and they acknowledged that not every family has the priviledge.

“There’s so many families out there that live close to these [places,] and they don’t know about this stuff. And the kids are missing out because the families don’t have the money to take them. If they knew the resource was there, where they could go for free, they would be more likely to take their children to experience these [places,]” the mother said.

Her children had fond memories from these places, but for their mother, it went deeper than just remembering. She enjoyed the educational aspect of the trips she took with her daughters, but she also liked the fact that they could experience something unique while still staying close to home.

“A lot of the animals are animals that the kids would never see otherwise. Like the panda, who is virtually extinct. Or the elephant, that you could only see at a zoo, or maybe the circus. Or the lions, that you’re not going to see because a lot of people don’t have the money to travel all the way to Africa to see them.”

Being a parent herself, she realized that her kids learned better in person.

“It’s hard to reach kids with books sometimes. Because not every kid likes to read. So what [the library] is doing is they’re bringing the education that you can find in a book to [the kid’s] situation, where it gives them access to things that they otherwise would not have access to.”

It went even deeper than seeing animals. For the family, visiting these places is also a chance to experience another culture, for someone who might not ever leave the country.

“The museums and the zoos are a way of bringing everyone’s culture, and everyone’s experiences to [visitor’s] lives.”

Whether it’s animals, science, or culture, the family’s mother enjoyed experiencing it in real life.

“You’re not just looking at a picture in a book or in a magazine. You’re seeing them up close and in person. It brings a little of the big world that we live in, to everybody in it that doesn’t have the resources otherwise to experience it any other way.”

HHJ News