The small museums — a hospital's, and a mother's

HealthWorks! by 2001 — Children's Museum of South Bend, 2021

HealthWorks!: The city's most unusual museum belonged to a hospital. HealthWorks! Kids' Museum, a unit of Memorial Health System — the hospital itself states it so — taught health rather than illness: interactive exhibits and hands-on displays on fitness, the body and healthy habits, an indoor playground and a small climbing wall, at 111 West Jefferson Boulevard downtown. It was operating by September 2001, when Modern Healthcare profiled it as the system's answer to a plain idea: that children taught to care for themselves become healthier adults. Its idea traveled: the HealthWorks! opened in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 2014 was expressly based on the original in South Bend, "only the second center of its kind in the United States" in its founders' account. The visitor record of the South Bend museum runs through the mid-2010s; the sources reached for this section do not establish its course after those years, and that gap is printed rather than papered over.

The Children's Museum of South Bend: A second children's museum opened in July 2021, after three years of making, at 2632 South Michigan Street — science and STEAM exhibits for young children, built by the museum's board and volunteers with Ziolkowski Construction. It was founded by Emilie Utigard and is dedicated to her son Finn, who died of complications from influenza in 2018 at the age of five. The museum partnered from its opening with Hope Ministries and St. Margaret's House so that children of low-income families could visit. It is a small institution with a memorial at its center, and it is printed here at the size the record gives it.

Sources:

1. Modern Healthcare, "Exhibiting healthy behavior" (3 September 2001) — Memorial Health System's HealthWorks! Kids' Museum in South Bend and its purpose.
2. Memorial Hospital of South Bend and its volunteer program, as carried in the hospital's listings — HealthWorks! Kids' Museum as a unit of the hospital; the museum's address at 111 West Jefferson Boulevard, Suite 200, and its interactive health exhibits, indoor playground and climbing wall in the county directory record.
3. Clio, "HealthWorks! Kids Museum" (Leadingham, 2014) — the Tupelo center based on the original HealthWorks! Kids' Museum in South Bend, the second center of its kind in the United States.
4. South Bend Tribune, "Children's Museum of South Bend opens, features STEAM exhibits" (6 July 2021) — the soft opening at 2632 South Michigan Street, the three years of making, the dedication to Finn Utigard, the partnerships with Hope Ministries and St. Margaret's House, and the Ziolkowski Construction build.