Gathering Museum treasures

I am often asked, "Where do you get all that 'stuff' for your museum project?  The answer is lots of places.  I have been a collector for many years of a wide variety of items.  When I began this project I borrowed items I owned to enhance lessons that I shared with my school community.  Once the project took off I then began collecting things separately that could be used to educate students that they could view up close and some they could  actually touch.  The collection quickly became obsession, passion, and mission all rolled into one. So back to the 'Where', I shop- in Thrift shops, Antique Malls, Flea markets, and garage sales both in the St. Louis area and when I travel.  When vacationing, I try to find  African American history in the area and collect pamphlets, take pictures and visit museum gift shops. Over the years fellow collectors have gifted me items they feel could be used within my collection rather than their own; I love this.  That way my community is growing the collection with me, they are taking an active part in helping me to educate children and adults with hands on materials.   Some collecting is random but many times I am looking for items that tell a story or can be connected to a story.  I've recently rediscovered some items I bought and thought it might be fun to feature some of the museum collection in the museum blog, on Facebook as well as Instagram.
Here's an example-  I found this book on the March on Washington.

  I was able to purchase a picture on line from the March. 

In ,papers from my Mother's work with the church I added these items to the collection:

The U.S. Postal service released this collection of stamps commemorating the March on Washington.

This collection, along with several story books, and just like that a collection of artifacts compliment one another and are perfect for teaching about the March on Washington.