It’s unquestionable that summer is the best season. There are outdoor concerts, movies, workouts, parties and more that draw us out of the house week after week, and now, we even have an excuse to take a vacation (more like staycation) day on a Friday and ditch work in lieu of some well-earned culture.
And today launches the sixth season of what’s now become a summertime tradition in the city of Boston and beyond: Free Fun Fridays, the series created by the Highland Street Foundation in 2008 that opens the doors to cultural institutions in the area at no charge to guests. After gaining traction, it’s now a staple event series that families from all over look forward to every season.
The idea for Free Fun Fridays originated the year of Highland Street Foundation’s 20th anniversary. Blake Jordan, executive director of the foundation, said that they wanted to mark the occasion by doing something that everyone could participate in. So, they decided to open up ten museums and cultural venues for free, one for every remaining week of the summer. In its first year, Free Fun Fridays were a success.
“We ended up having more than 60,000 people visiting those 10 places,” said Jordan. “And that’s when we realized there was something to this, and there was a real need for it.” Since that inaugural year, the Highland Street Foundation has worked to make Free Fun Fridays a bigger and better experience. Now, after beginning with ten venues, the program now has 67 participating museums and institutions.
Jordan says that one of the best parts of the program is that it includes the large institutions that everyone is familiar with, like the Museum of Fine Arts and the Boston Children’s Museum, as well as the smaller venues that Jordan said don’t have marketing teams or the same amount of exposure. “They love being a part of it,” said Jordan. “It’s a great resource.”
While the program gives exposure to smaller budget museums, it also gives opportunity to lower income families who otherwise might not be able to afford a family trip to somewhere like Plimoth Plantation. Jordan believes that the purpose of Free Fun Fridays mirrors that of the foundation itself.
“We’re really trying to create access and opportunity for people and communities, especially low income communities,” said Jordan. “We’re fortunate enough to live in an area that has these unbelievable cultural institutions, so let’s open them for free, and hopefully people will go who haven’t been to them before, and they’ll want to go back.”
Learn more about the Highland Street Foundation (which, in the past, rescued the iconic First Night from extinction), and check out the complete schedule of Free Fun Fridays dates and venues below.
Images via Highland Street Foundation
