{"id":1335,"date":"2018-01-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwordmuseum.org\/a-message-from-the-founder-2018\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T17:16:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T21:16:25","slug":"a-message-from-the-founder-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwordmuseum.org\/a-message-from-the-founder-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"A Message from the Founder 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">This past year saw incredible movement toward making Planet Word a reality \u2014 we are now just two years away from opening! \u00a0Indeed, since I wrote my original \u201cmessage from the founder\u201d on this website a year ago, much has happened. \u00a0Although my original mission and goals for Planet Word have remained the same \u2014 to create a place where words will be honored, respected, marveled at and elicit surprise and delight \u2014 we have forged a clear path on how best to do that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">We found a fabulous home for the museum in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetwordmuseum.org\/blog\/2017\/1\/12\/historic-home-for-planet-word-announced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">historic Franklin School<\/a> in downtown D.C. Not only is it the perfect size for the museum \u2014 accommodating the gallery spaces, auditorium, classrooms, language research lab, retail shop, and restaurant we envisioned \u2014 but its storied past aligns perfectly with our mission, being the site of a telecommunications breakthrough by Alexander Graham Bell in 1880 and a place of learning and architectural distinction since its 1869 groundbreaking.<\/li>\n<li style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">We hired <a href=\"https:\/\/www.planetwordmuseum.org\/blog\/2017\/3\/27\/patty-isacson-sabee-joins-plant-word-as-its-first-executive-director\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patty Isacson Sabee<\/a> as Executive Director, an experienced museum professional to guide us through the challenges of a start-up operation.<\/li>\n<li style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">We retained the exhibit design firm <a href=\"http:\/\/localprojects.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Local Projects<\/a> to develop the gallery experiences and look and feel of the gallery spaces.<\/li>\n<li style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">We have been working closely with the architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle to renovate and restore the Franklin School to its former glory while creating a workable museum space that respects the historic importance of the building fa\u00e7ade and interior d\u00e9cor.<\/li>\n<li style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">We launched a fun and continually-updated <a href=\"http:\/\/planetwordmuseum.org\/blog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">blog<\/a> to reflect the diversity of language topics that visitors can expect to encounter at Planet Word. And you can follow us on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PlanetWordDC\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/facebook.com\/planetwordmuseum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>, too!<\/li>\n<li style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">We started active fundraising to support the design, fabrication, and installation of the museum\u2019s unique, original experiences, and are pleased to count the Bloomberg Philanthropies among our earliest major donors.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">So hold on to your hats as we continue our rapid progress toward establishing Planet Word! Watch this space to read about our progress or walk by 13th and K if you happen to be in Washington, D.C. You can also send us an email at <a href=\"mailto:connect@planetwordmuseum.org\">connect@planetwordmuseum.org<\/a> or make an online donation at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.planetwordmuseum.org\/donate\">www.planetwordmuseum.org\/donate<\/a>. We are happy to count you among our friends and supporters and welcome you as a member of our burgeoning Planet Word community.<\/p>\n<p style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\">\u2014 Ann Friedman, founder, Planet Word<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A message for the new year from founder Ann Friedman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":1337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[29,30],"class_list":["post-1335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-founder","tag-franklin-school","tag-museum-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Message from the Founder 2018 &#8212; Planet Word Museum<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/planetwordmuseum.org\/a-message-from-the-founder-2018\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Message from the Founder 2018 &#8212; 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