Roanoke, Va. November 20, 2025 – The Don and Barbara Smith Children’s Museum, also known as Kids Square, located at Center in the Square announces the Great Gingerbread Escape for the 2025 holiday season.  Businesses and families are invited to decorate cardboard gingerbread people, and the public will decide whose is best.

Once decorated, the Gingerbread people will be presented throughout all five floors of Center in the Square. Patrons will be asked to tour the displays and vote for their favorite.  All displays will be in public areas, and no museum admissions will be required to vote.  

Those wishing to decorate a gingerbread person must click this link to secure a blank cardboard cutout. https://pci.jotform.com/form/253154792842160  The decorated Gingerbread person must be returned to Kids Square by 5 p.m. on December 6.  The public is invited to vote for their favorite between December 11 and December 31, 2025.

“This is going to be so much fun!” said Felicia Branham, executive director of Kids Square.  “We want decorators to go over the top with their ideas, so that each gingerbread person is unique.  We also want it to be hard for the judges to decide which one they love the most!”

Once it’s time to vote, the public will be given a special holiday story that guides them through the Gingerbread world.

The cost to create a gingerbread person is $40.  Those wishing to vote will pay $15 for up to a family of four.  All proceeds go to Kids Square, to help pay for year-round programming for area children.

Thanks to Packaging Corporation of America for donating the cardboard.

For more information or media interviews, contact Executive Director Felicia Branham at 
(540) 342-5724.

About Center in the Square: The Western Virginia Foundation for the Arts and Sciences, operating as Center in the Square, enhances the region’s economic development, education, and quality of life by providing a home to eight important cultural organizations. It is an independent, private, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that owns and operates four downtown Roanoke properties: Center in the Square, Center on Church, the former Shenandoah Hotel, and the former downtown Norfolk & Western Railway Passenger Station.
Center in the Square is responsible for gifting spaces to six other nonprofit organizations: Mill Mountain Theatre,      O. Winston Link Museum, Opera Roanoke, Roanoke Ballet Theatre, Roanoke History Museum, and the Science Museum of Western Virginia. Center in the Square also operates its own programs including Kids Square, Roanoke Pinball Museum, and Roanoke STARCADE. Proceeds from these programs along with donations, grants, sponsors, etc. are needed to maintain the buildings needed for the cultural, educational offerings of Center in the Square’s beneficiary nonprofits.