Steve and Patricia Beale of Waggoner, Illinois, didn’t plan to run a museum. They just kept collecting. What began with California Raisins figures shifted to M&Ms, and the collection eventually outgrew a bedroom in their home. The solution was a 20-by-30-foot shed, now packed floor to ceiling with more than 5,000 M&M items.
The museum is free to enter, nothing inside is for sale, and every visitor gets a fun-size bag of M&Ms. Steve’s take is refreshing: once you start selling, you’re not a collector anymore, you’re in it for the money. The spot sits on historic Route 66, which means travelers from around the world have found their way to a small Illinois town to see chocolate memorabilia in a shed.
Closer to home, the Suncoast is full of people with a passion project and a spare room that lost the battle. Maybe that’s you. What’s the collection in your life that’s outgrown its space? Tell us and we might put it on the air.
