The Greensboro Children’s Museum in downtown Greensboro is meant to be for children but the museum itself is turning 20 this year – and it’s celebrating that fact with a time capsule that will remain buried for a half a century.  As part of the Children’s Museum 20th Birthday Celebration, on Wednesday, May 15, from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., the museum will be collecting and displaying items from downtown businesses that will go into the time capsule.

At that time, the museum will also be giving tours.  The event is free and open to the public.

Ilyasah Shabazz, marketing manager for the Children’s Museum, said the museum has already received some items for the capsule. For instance, she said, the Experiential School of Greensboro has given a school t-shirt with the thumbprints of students on it and an index card with the students’ names.

Another item, she said, was from the Greensboro Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“They have given us a Visitor’s Guide so people in the future can see what was going on,” she said.

Shabazz said the time capsule won’t be buried on May 15 but will be at a later date.

The Children’s Museum, located at 220 N. Church Street, opened 20 years ago, in 1999, and, over the past two decades, both the museum and the downtown have grown a great deal.  Museum officials say the time capsule is a way to pay homage to that growth as well as to signal the promise of future growth.   The capsule will remain unsealed until the year 2069 – when the sky will probably be filled with flying cars and when the promise of self-lacing shoes will no doubt have become a reality.