Ever since I was a child, the arrival of August has always signaled that another school year is just around the corner. Here at the Museum, our Education team is leading our last week of Summer Camp and beginning to prepare for this fall’s school programs. Excitement is in the air as we look forward to the return of school groups and our wonderful docent volunteers.
The Museum’s volunteers are among our strongest ambassadors, helping us to foster a love of nature through their enthusiasm for natural history and greatly expanding our capacity to fulfill our mission. This past year we expanded our educational programs, introduced great new gallery experiences and reached over 32,000 children and adults through our programming, exhibits and outreach. That’s a 17% increase in attendance over last year’s record! We honestly could not have accomplished this success without our terrific volunteers. Together they provided us with over 3,600 hours of service; to put that into perspective, a full-time employee works 2,080 hours per year. For our small organization, this support made a huge impact on what we were able to accomplish.
However, the value of our volunteers goes way beyond the number of hours they serve. Volunteers enrich the experience of our visitors and members through their interactions. Our docents (school program volunteers) spark school children’s excitement about the natural world by leading our Ohlone and “Our Animal Neighbors” Museum-based programs and our nature-based school trips in Neary Lagoon and Pogonip. With our specimens and artifacts—as well as local natural spaces like the Museum’s Native Garden—docents facilitate first-hand experiences that bring to life scientific lessons children learn in the classroom. They engage students in dynamic experiences and ignite a greater fascination in the natural world, which we hope will lead to future naturalists, scientists and better-informed citizens.
This hope extends far beyond our school programs; it is nurtured in all of our programming. Our volunteers are important partners in helping us to build strong connections between our visitors and nature. We’re lucky to have folks like Emily Harmon, who has been a leader in our Summer Camps, which end August 4. She is featured in this month’s Faces of the Museum, and personifies how community support can help strengthen our programming.
Similarly, volunteers engage the community by participating in Naturalist Nights, walks and workshops, and our bi-annual Rio Theatre lecture series. These events form the foundation of our public programming, and would hardly be as engaging as they are without volunteers greeting guests, interpreting concepts, highlighting our collections, and providing a host of other support.
We hope you might consider joining our Museum family as a volunteer. We welcome a wide range of folks, from retirees to teenagers and every age in between. Docents must be 18 years of age, but those as young as 12 who are looking for a fun way to serve our community can also help us out. If you have a love of nature and wish to share it with others, please join us for our fall volunteer training. All we require is your enthusiasm and availability—we’ll teach you the rest! Learn more.
Thank you,
Heather