The 2100 block of North Tripp Avenue is a residential runway crammed with humble homes and landscaped lawns—until the one-way intersects West Palmer Street, where a blue house with stripped siding sits in shambles. A blatant eyesore, the house would be demolished if it were in any other neighborhood, but this shack situated in Hermosa is special—it is the childhood home of Walt Disney, and although it still stands, no one really seems to care that it is in disrepair.

Disney’s father built the house located at 2156 N. Tripp Ave. in 1893, where Disney was born in 1901 and resided until the family sold the house in 1906. Over the last century, the house has fallen into disarray, but a California couple purchased the home in 2013 with ambitions of turning it into a museum. However, a failed Kickstarter campaign has unfortunately stalled their project.

As reported in the article on Page 19, the homeowners launched a Kickstarter on Dec. 5 with a goal of raising $500,000 to restore the home and convert it into a museum. The campaign closed on Jan. 6 after raising an underwhelming $111,138.

The disappointing pledge can be attributed in part to the homeowners, who should have put more effort into advertising the Kickstarter and spent more than just a month fundraising. But the fact that they had to resort to Kickstarter is sad considering the half-a-million dollars they need would be a minor dent in the Walt Disney Company’s deep pocket—but the company has been dishearteningly uninvolved.

According to Robert Coker, a project spokesman quoted in the article on Page 19, the homeowners would be more than willing to partner with the Walt Disney Company to establish the museum, but he said there has been no open communication with Disney.

It is only logical that the empire Disney began would help transform his childhood home into a museum, but it’s up to the homeowners to proactively pursue that source of funding rather than hope Kickstarter will answer their prayers.

The homeowners plan to keep trying, and hopefully the Walt Disney Company will step in—otherwise the museum is doomed to be just a fairy tale.