Latest news with #CaroleKamin
CBS News
7 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Heinz History Center will give kids free admission after $11.5 million donation
Kids will be able to get into the Heinz History Center for free year-round thanks to a donation of $11.5 million. The history center on Tuesday announced the donation from Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin, the same couple behind the $65 million donation that will rename the Carnegie Science Center in their honor. Beginning Sept. 1, kids will be able to get into the Heinz History Center and Fort Pitt Museum for free. Right now, tickets are free for kids 5 and under and $11 for kids ages 6 to 17. Admission costs for school groups will also be covered. "Learning and understanding our history has never been more critical. We are proud to support the Heinz History Center and its important mission," Carole Kamin said in a news release. "Dan and I hope this gift helps to eliminate one barrier for families and schools alike, so they can explore our region's rich heritage and be inspired to make a difference." The contribution will help support the history center's expansion, which is slated to include a new orientation theater, classrooms and exhibition space. "Thanks to the leadership and generosity of Dan and Carole Kamin, kids from Western Pa. and beyond will have more access than ever before to the History Center's award-winning exhibitions and programs," said Howard W. "Hoddy" Hanna III, chairman of the history center's board of trustees. "As the History Center prepares to expand its footprint in the Strip District, this gift will help secure long-term sustainability for the museum and further position the History Center as a premier cultural attraction in Pittsburgh." The Kamin Family Foundation was born from a family-owned business that became the 38th largest developer in the nation, with properties in 45 states totaling nearly 17 million square feet. Daniel Kamin is a Shady Side Academy and University of Pennsylvania graduate whose philanthropic vision is fueled by his passion for science and history. Carole Kamin is involved in several charities across the Pittsburgh area and was recently named as a 2025 woman of influence by the Pittsburgh Business Times.
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
$25M ‘historic' gift lets Carnegie Museum of Natural History upgrade its iconic dinosaur exhibit
A historic gift to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History will allow for renovations to a beloved exhibit. The museum announced Wednesday they were given a $25 million gift from Daniel and Carole Kamin. It's the largest individual monetary donation to the museum since Andrew Carnegie founded the Cargenie Museums in 1895. The couple last year provided a 'transformative' $65 million gift to the Carnegie Science Center — also the largest donation that museum has received since its creation. RELATED COVERAGE >>> Carnegie Science Center to change name following $65M 'transformational gift' 'Twice in the past year, Dan and Carole Kamin have demonstrated their profound commitment to the work of our museums through transformational gifts totaling $90 million,' said Dr. Steven Knapp, President and CEO of Carnegie Museums. 'We are deeply grateful for their unparalleled endorsement of our museums' power to inspire and inform, and we are honored to be a part of their great legacy of generosity in the Pittsburgh region.' A portion of the $25 million donation will be used to renovate the museum's Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition between now and 2028. To honor the generous gift, the gallery where this exhibit is displayed will be renamed the Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin Hall of Dinosaurs. Some of the updates museum officials highlight to the nearly 20-year-old exhibit include immersive and interactive elements, in-gallery storytelling and an emphasis on accessibility. 'Carnegie Museum of Natural History stewards one of the most extraordinary dinosaur fossil collections in the world...' said museum director Gretchen Baker. 'Now, with Carole and Dan's generous support, we'll reimagine the gallery in which these iconic specimens are displayed, plus tens of thousands of additional square feet within the museum.' The rest of the funds will be used to establish an endowment to support the museum's scientific mission. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
New York Times
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Museum With Renowned Dinosaur Fossils Gets a $25 Million Gift
Carole Kamin first walked through the doors of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1975 after taking a job as a buyer for the Pittsburgh museum's gift shop. Awe-struck by the fossils on display, she would style herself as a 'dinosaur queen' for the next 20 years. She sourced dino-patterned fabric from India for barbecue aprons. She worked with a toy manufacturer to produce models of the museum's ancient creatures. She persuaded a candy supplier to make caramel-filled 'Sweet Beasts.' Now Kamin and her husband, Daniel, are donating $25 million toward renovating the museum, which was founded in 1895 and has one of North America's largest museum collections of fossils. The gift comes at a time when dinosaurs are as firmly entrenched in the zeitgeist as ever, thanks in part to record-setting fossil auctions and blockbuster films. The Carnegie museum's holdings include the species-defining fossils — known as holotypes — of the terrifying predator Tyrannosaurus rex and the giant herbivore Apatosaurus louisae. It also displays arguably the most famous dinosaur skeleton on Earth: the remains of Diplodocus carnegii, a long-necked dinosaur found in 1899 during an expedition funded by the steel baron and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Replica casts of the dinosaur, known as 'Dippy,' reside in museums around the world. 'This is a dinosaur town,' said Matt Lamanna, the museum's curator of vertebrate paleontology. 'It's a source of civic pride.' The Kamins' donation will give the exhibit housing these ancient creatures, as well as surrounding displays, its first major upgrade in nearly two decades. A majority of their gift will create an endowment to fund research at the museum in perpetuity. 'I know how hard it is to get money for research and even positions,' said Carole Kamin, an emeritus member of the museum's advisory board. 'I just feel really, really good about this, knowing that it's going to help have the right people there.' It is a perilous moment for the natural world that museums catalog. Beyond the exhibits they host, natural history museums preserve the world's cultural and biological heritage. 'There's so much changing so rapidly, especially as it relates to biodiversity and the environments that we all call home, but these changes don't make sense unless we can look at that across millions of years,' said Gretchen Baker, the director of the Carnegie museum. 'Natural history museums are really the only place that can provide that kind of context, because we have the actual specimens and evidence of that change over time.' Some keepers of this archive are struggling to survive. Last year, Duke University announced plans to close its herbarium, one of the country's largest collections of plant, fungi and algae specimens. The Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, N.Y., announced in January that $30 million in pledged donations had fallen through, jeopardizing its ability to pay the mortgage on its Museum of the Earth. Over the past decade, though, several institutions have received large gifts to renovate marquee dinosaur exhibits and support research into the extinct reptiles. Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History received a $160 million gift in 2018, and from 2016 to 2017, Kenneth C. Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund manager, gave the Field Museum in Chicago over $21 million for its dinosaur exhibits. Last year, Griffin bought a Stegosaurus fossil known as 'Apex' at auction for $44.6 million and then agreed to loan it to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It is now being displayed in the museum's recently opened Gilder Center, a $465 million expansion seeded by Richard Gilder, the banker and philanthropist. The Kamins' gift to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History follows a $65 million donation that the couple — Daniel Kamin is the president of the Pittsburgh-based commercial real estate firm Kamin Realty — made last year to its sister institution, the Carnegie Science Center. Their combined $90 million in donations over the past year marks the largest philanthropic contribution to Carnegie Museums since Carnegie himself. Private support for research stands to become more important in the years to come, as the Trump administration considers cutting federal support to scientific and medical research. 'We exist because of private philanthropy, because Andrew Carnegie wanted to give back to the city where he had built his extraordinary wealth,' said Steven Knapp, the president and chief executive of Carnegie Museums. 'It's kind of at the heart of what makes it possible for institutions like ours to exist and to thrive.' When Carole Kamin was grinding away in her mid-20s, her work at the museum even bled into her sleep. She dreamed of baby dinosaurs running amok in the museum's basement, and of ancient winged reptiles known as pterosaurs soaring over Slippery Rock Creek, a stream north of Pittsburgh. The gift by the Kamins helps ensure that national history museums like the one that ignited her imagination will remain. 'It's a source of education for young people — of being curious about our world in general — and it sparks the interest in and curiosity of how the world even began,' she said. 'It'd be a lonely planet without having them.'
