Golisano Children’s Museum of Naples (CMON) is a trusted place for children to play, learn and dream. We’re proud of our impact, and we know there’s more we can do to serve our community.
Since CMON opened in 2012, the school-age population in Collier County has increased by 20 percent. The county’s birth rate has grown more than 10% since 2019 and will grow by 30% in the next decade. Despite all these new young residents, we’ve lost more than 22 early learning facilities in the county since the start of the pandemic. There are 17,000 children younger than 5 in the county now, but only about 1,000 slots for high-quality early learning classes.
Our team is excited to serve this rapidly growing community by opening an Early Learning Center (ELC) serving PreK3 and PreK4 students as soon as 2026. CMON’s mission is to inspire a lifelong love of learning and exploration, and the ELC will provide a best-in-class, play-based curriculum for all economic backgrounds.
This will be a one-of-a-kind learning environment for students to develop and to be positioned for success throughout their academic careers. This spring we were lucky to be awarded $1.5 million in capital funding from the State of Florida to jumpstart this project. This will cover approximately 50 percent of the construction and start-up costs for the center.