Talk to the passionate team behind KidSTREAM, a new children’s museum in Ventura County, and they’ll tell you about the many lofty goals they have for the 21,000-square-foot space which opened to the public Thursday.
They’ll describe how the museum is the first of its kind in Ventura County and how they hope to make it accessible to as many local children as possible through outreach, discounts and free programming.
They’ll explain how the immersive exhibits highlight the county’s unique industry and geography, including an agriculture area where young visitors can pick pretend fruits and sell them at a farmers market and an ocean exhibit where miniature replicas of the Channel Islands emerge from the bouncy blue “Pacific Ocean.”
They’ll share that the STREAM in KidSTREAM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts and Math, and talk about the activity carts and art projects that will enhance and support learning for young visitors.
But they are also well aware that for some families, the still-evolving space will serve a less highfalutin, if just as important, goal.
“Parents are looking for a good nap on the way home,” said KidSTREAM founder Kristie Akl. “And we can give them that too.”
Akl, along with KidSTREAM board chairman Bryan Yee and guest experience director Dani Hildreth, were giddy with excitement as they took me on a tour of the museum in the days before it opened.
This moment had been a long time coming, they said.
A high-energy former high school biology teacher with a make-it-happen spirit, Akl first began dreaming about a children’s museum in Ventura County in 2013 after taking her three daughters to KidSpace, a children’s museum in Pasadena founded by members of the Caltech community in 1979.
Akl loved Kidspace, but it was a full hour from the family’s house in Camarillo and she longed for something similar closer to home. For two years, she tried convincing others to create a children’s museum in Ventura County. When that failed, she formed a fledgling board in 2015 and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2017.
“I was always optimistic,” she said. “You have to be to do something like this.”
The original plan was to open the museum in 2020, but fundraising efforts were hampered by the 2017 Thomas fire, which destroyed hundreds of homes in the area. A few years later came COVID shutdowns. The delays were discouraging, but Akl and a growing community of motivated believers used the time to build out their proof of concept by bringing science projects to local schools, neighborhoods and community events, creating online workshops and giving farm workers free science kits to help their kids get exploring.
“It was a herculean task and a huge community effort,” Akl said. “Everyone leaned in.”
Today she estimates that the KidSTREAM Children’s Museum touched the lives of 70,000 children in the Ventura area before ever opening its doors.
“They prototyped a lot of ideas,” said Yee, a father of three who took over from Akl as chairman of the board of KidSTREAM in 2022. “That showed us what works and what doesn’t work and what we should do next.”
In 2022, the city of Camarillo donated the building that housed the former public library to the museum and in 2024, the team raised enough money to bring children’s museum specialist Hildreth on board. Construction began in 2025.
In addition to the agriculture and Pacific Ocean areas outside, visitors will find a camping exhibit with an obstacle course, gratitude tree and a series of different shaped tents where kids can play. There’s also a sand pit where children can dig up replicas of pygmy mammoth bones. (The pygmy mammoth is a dwarf species of mammoth that was native to the Channel Islands.) A nature area includes a sensory path designed with the unique needs of neurologically divergent children in mind.
“There are 200,000 kids in Ventura County from a huge range of backgrounds including a lot of farm worker families,” Hildreth said. “The space is designed for all of them, newborn to 10 years old.”
In addition to the outdoor play areas, visitors will find an indoor “makerspace” with a white Lego wall where children can create vertical designs, four tables for art projects and a super-sized Lite-Brite.
“When you are 3 feet tall, it’s your whole field of vision,” Hildreth said.
Admission to KidSTREAM is $16 for adults and children over the age of 1, $13 for seniors and military, and $3 for families with EBT, SNAP or WIC cards. Membership options are also available.
Yee said market research suggests the new museum will reach as many as 150,000 people, and there is still room for expansion.
“We’re 21,000 square feet now with room for growth,” he said. “We’re not stopping, but we’re so excited to open our doors.”
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