Volume 2, No. 19. October 11, 2002
Riding the tide
Gary Holliday can
sometimes feel a little crabby when he arrives at his destination after driving
through New York City traffic. And sometimes he just looks crabby, thanks to
the hermit crab costume he wears. “It’s highly embarrassing,”
he said of the clothes he wears visiting New York area schools, “but they
seem to like it.”
Holliday is coordinator of outreach services at the New York Aquarium, and in
that position he operates the Aquaravan program, a fleet of two Chrysler Voyagers
that visit schools, libraries, hospitals and nursing homes. Armed with puppets,
animal artifacts, art activities, stories to tell and costumes to wear, Holliday
makes topical presentations about marine life, various species or conservation.
Occasionally he takes along live animals, namely horseshoe crabs, sea urchins
and sea stars, the species typically occupying aquarium touch pools. “People
always want me to bring a sea lion, but I joke that we argue about who is going
to drive,” Holliday said.
The New York Aquarium began offering Aquaravan five years ago. “The idea
is that for people who may not get to the aquarium, we go to them,” Holliday
said. The idea is not unique to the New York Aquarium; some aquariums have even
abandoned the program, preferring to bus school groups and summer camps in to
the parent facility. But when Holliday took over New York’s program two
years ago, he expanded Aquaravan’s reach to hospitals, nursing homes and
“a lot of rehabilitation centers,” he said. He also expanded Aquaravan’s
geographic reach to New Jersey and “far out onto Long Island.”
Aquaravan visits cost $125 to $200 an hour, depending on the venue’s need
and financial limitations. Charges may be added for mileage to more distant
locations and parking (lower Manhattan costs $20 to park).
While reaching out further with his outreach mission, Holliday beefed up the
program’s marketing efforts, putting together a mailing list and posting
notices in libraries, newspapers and newsletters. Among Aquaravan’s visits
now are various festivals, which Holliday sees as an advertising opportunity
for the aquarium. “People are starting to call out of the blue,” he
said. “They tell us they heard about it or read it in the paper or talked
to somebody who experienced it.”
Thanks to these efforts Holliday is now driving his van through New York traffic
almost every day of the week, sometimes making two visits a day. With the vans
colorful murals of an octopus, seahorse and shark, Aquaravans have proven to
be “great advertising on their own,” Holliday said. “I’ll
stop at a stoplight and people come up asking for my card. Or they ask for directions.
They think I know where I’m going.”
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