More than 2,000 museums nationwide are offering free admission to military personnel and their families this summer, beginning on Memorial Day.
The Blue Star Museums program is being announced Wednesday at the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio, Texas. This is the fifth year for the program created by the National Endowment for the Arts with the group Blue Star Families and the Defense Department.
The offer of free admission runs through Labor Day in September. It is extended to military service members, including National Guard and Reserve members, and their families.
The initiative began in 2010 with fewer than 1,000 museums and has more than doubled in size. New participants this year include the High Museum in Atlanta and The Thinkery children's museum in Austin, Texas.
The following museums in Washington, D.C. will offer free admission to military personnel and their families:
- Anacostia Community Museum
- Dumbarton House
- Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- Hillwood Museum
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
- Luther W. Brady Art Gallery - George Washington University
- National Air and Space Museum
- National Archives
- National Building Museum
- National Guard Memorial Museum
- National Museum of African Art
- National Museum of American History
- National Museum of Natural History
- National Museum of Women in the Arts
- National Portrait Gallery
- National Postal Museum
- National Zoological Park
- S. Dillon Ripley Center International Gallery
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Smithsonian Institution Building, the Castle
- Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian
- The Kreeger Museum
- The Phillips Collection
- The President Woodrow Wilson House
- Tudor Place
