Celebrating 50 Years
The Next Wave
The Coastal Interpretive Center (CIC) was founded in 1977 as "Ocean Adventures", located on the southside of Ocean Shores. Over the decades, our museum has since expanded and our programs have grown. In recent years we have embraced our role as a regional leader in cradle-to-career education: by focusing on the nature and culture of Grays Harbor County, we can build a better community community for all students. When me make children proud to grow up here, they'll be proud to live here as adults; when adults are proud to live in Grays Harbor, they're proud to give back to our community.
In that spirit, we hope you'll give back to the CIC by participating in our 50th anniversary celebrations, starting this year and continuing through 2027. Join our Golden Anniversary Campaign. Scroll down to learn more:
From 15 to 50
In 2025, the CIC educated 2,300 unique students from across Grays Harbor County, making the CIC the largest non-profit educational services provider in the region. By reconnecting students to our shared natural resources, and by integrating our programs with those of our scientific agency partners, we are actively developing career pathways for all grade levels across the coast.
Right now, we're reaching approximately 15% of Grays Harbor students. But to truly create a more dynamic region, we need to reach 50% of our region's students on an annual basis. That's not growth for the sake of growth – it's the recognition that the CIC is developing a formula to improve student outcomes and that more students deserve to participate in our programs.
We see our 50th anniversary as a challenge: "How do we grow as an organization to meet the needs of our community?" Our response is embedded in our plans for the CIC campus and programs.
Our Fundraising Goal: $750,000
What's In Our Campaign
In 2025, the CIC Museum welcomed about 7,000 visitors during student field trips, regular museum open hours, museum group tours. To accommodate more students – particularly in rainy months – we're designing new exterior structures, including a sheltered outdoor classroom, larger (covered) entryway, and extra office space.
We want our museum grounds to show to students and adults the many habitats, species, and histories of our region. We plan to completely relandscape our campus to add interactive children's features, hundreds of new plants, and to create a storywalk that ties together our trails and museum. All this will enhance the educational potential of the CIC Museum for Grays Harbor residents and visitors by showcasing the unique landscape we call home.
We are a small, but dedicated, staff. But to educate more students and bring CIC programs to more people, we need to ensure greater funding stability. As part of our 50th anniversary campaign, we will be raising funds to reinvest in education programs, particularly to hire and retain talented staff.
As an organization we make a point to keep our museum fresh (inside and outside). When possible, we make museum updates. To reflect changing visitor habits and rising visitor traffic, we would like to fully update interior and exterior exhibits to bring new information to displays, bring items out from collections storage into the public, and
Building Progress
Design Ideas & Renovation Plans
Museum Building
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Museum Campus
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Interior Exhibits
Exhibit renovation plans in late-2026.
Join Our Next Wave
We tremendously excited to share our 50th anniversary plans with you – and we hope you'll join us in our campaign! Please click below to donate to the CIC's 50th Anniversary Capital Campaign today:
Campaign Partners
The CIC is grateful for the support of our government, foundation, and corporate partners in our 50th anniversary campaign, including:
So far, we've raised $260,000 towards our $750,000 goal!
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