Laura Lee Simon looks at home in a new exhibit at Stepping Stones Museum for Children.

Photo Credit: Jim Gerweck

Laura Lee Simon, founder of the Connecticut Commission on Children, is a lifelong child advocate.

Photo Credit: Jim Gerweck

The Stepping Stones Museum for Children prides itself on providing a hands-on experience to visitors. And though you don't actually see them, the virtual fingerprints of Laura Lee Simon are everywhere on the recently reopened Norwalk attraction.

Simon is hands-on in all of the causes she's involved in, most of them dealing with children and improving their knowledge and health. "Much of what I do is focused on ways to make it possible for all children to become productive citizens," she says. The list of Simon's causes could fill a book: founder and now Chair Emerita of the Connecticut Commission on Children; former chair of Connecticut Broadcasting Inc.; founder of the Bridgeport Child Advocacy Coalition – and the list goes on and on.

 Simon has been involved with Stepping Stones since its inception ten years ago. She now leads its Community Partners Council, and has been instrumental in the Museum's recent renovations and expansion. The new facility expands the attraction beyond the original ten and under age group.  In fact, the new Parent Teacher Resource center will engage parents and teachers, and prompt them to use new methods in helping young children learn.

As an example, Simon points to the new Multimedia Gallery and the museum’s partnership with the Rainforest Alliance, which helps provide content for the museum’s Rainforest Adventure exhibit. "Children can sit here in Connecticut and talk with children in Guatemala,” she says. "It's magic."

Simon also helped the Museum connect with the Yale Department of Psychology to ascertain how children learn. Similarly, the museum's new high-tech media room "offers a tremendous opportunity to partner with Connecticut Public Broadcasting," she says.

Walking through the museum before it reopened, Simon displayed her deep commitment as she showed off the new exhibits geared toward kids from toddlers to teens. At one exhibit after another her palpable excitement continued to serve as an inspiration to all.