Great Lakes Seaway Trail Now Part of Blue Star Museums Program

Sackets Harbor, NY -- The Seaway Trail Discovery Center in Sackets Harbor, NY, is now a Blue Star Museum. 

The Blue Star Museums program is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts with Blue Star Families, an organization that raises awareness of the challenges and strengths of military family life- and more than 1,300 participating museums across America. The museums, nature center, historic and cultural sites provide free admission spouses and families of active military.

More than one million children in the U.S. have had at least one parent deployed. The program provides the free admission to affected families  through Labor Day, September 5, 2011. 

“The Great Lakes Seaway Trail is pleased to partner with the National Endowment of the Arts in this initiative to provide military families with opportunities to learn about the byway region and the activities and destinations found only along our freshwater shoreline,” says Seaway Trail, Inc. President and CEO Teresa Mitchell. “By visiting the Seaway Trail Discovery Center which showcases the entire 518-mile National Scenic Byway, they will discover a diversity of recreational, historic, cultural, natural and scenic travel opportunities.” 

The Great Lakes Seaway Trail Discovery Center is located along the Sackets Harbor waterfront in the three-story, native limestone former Union Hotel built in 1817. The free admission will apply to daytime visits and evening programming at the Center. Upcoming 6:30pm programs feature US Lacrosse Hall of Fame Coach Kirk Ventiquattro on Saturday, July 9 and Onondaga Nation lacrosse stickmaker, coach and retired professional lacrosse player Alfie Jacques on Saturday, July 16.

There are 14 Blue Star Museums on Great Lakes Seaway Trail that stretches out with 518 miles for leisure driving and freshwater vacations along the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, Niagara River and Lake Erie in New York and Pennsylvania. Those sites are:

·      Antique Boat Museum - Clayton, NY 
·      Col. William Bond-Jesse Hawley House - Lockport, NY
·      Edinboro Area Historical Society - Edinboro, PA 
·      Erie Canal Discovery Center - Lockport, NY
·      The Erie Maritime Museum & U.S. Brig Niagara - Erie, PA 
·      Great Lakes Seaway Trail Discovery Center - Sackets Harbor, NY
·      Historic Palmyra - Palmyra, NY
·      Hornby School Museum - North East, PA 
·      Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester - Rochester, NY
·      Niagara County History Center - Lockport, NY
·      North Tonawanda History Museum - North Tonawanda, NY
·      Seneca-Iroquois National Museum - Salamanca, NY
·      Seward House Museum - Auburn, NY
·      Sodus Bay Lighthouse Museum - Sodus Point, NY.

More than 300,000 military families benefitted from the Blue Star Museums program in 2010.

The 2011 Great Lakes Seaway Trail Travel Magazine is being distributed to military personnel at Fort Drum, located approximately 25 miles northeast of Sackets Harbor, NY. 
 
For more information, go online to www.arts.gov/bluestarmuseums and www.seawaytrail.com, 315-646-1000. #