Next Stop for Free Fun Fridays: Peabody Essex Museum

The Highland Street Foundation sponsored program, Free Fun Fridays, comes to the Peabody Essex Museum tomorrow.Featured exhibits at the PEM will include photographs by Mark Ruwedel and Indian sculpture from the Figiel Collection. The Museum will open at 10:00 AM and close at 5:00 PM.

Free Fun Fridays continue to shatter attendance records at every venue this year and expects to exceed 60,000 participants on Friday with four weeks left in the program. Last year the program drew 58,000 guests. Highlights of the 2010 program include:

• Museum of Fine Arts had 11,049 people. Their highest attendance day in ten years.
• Boston Harbor Island Alliance had nearly 4,000 free ferry rides to Spectacle and Georges Islands and an additional 2,000 visitors were given vouchers to use for ferry rides to the Boston Harbor Islands for future use due to the overwhelming crowds.
• Franklin Park Zoo had 17,230 visitors the single largest day in history and twice as many people as the Free Fun Friday last year.
• Plimoth Plantation had 10,591 visitors, twice as many as its largest Thanksgiving ever.

The Labor Day Weekend grand finale will feature free admission to 16 venues across the state from Pittsfield to the Cape. Eight of the sixteen venues will be free on Friday and the remainder will be free on Saturday of Labor Day weekend.

Since it was established in 1989, the Highland Street Foundation has donated more than $112 million to many worthy non-profit organizations including $86 million to groups in Massachusetts alone. It is committed to addressing the needs and concerns of children and families primarily in Massachusetts and California specifically in the areas of education, housing, mentoring, health care, environment and the arts.

To learn more about the Highland Street Foundation and additional information about Free Fun Fridays please visit www.highlandstreet.org.