Volunteers at the Heart of Our Work

Our volunteer community showed amazing resilience throughout the last few challenging years. During the pandemic shutdown, and while the Museum was undergoing its complete renovation, our volunteers met weekly online via Zoom to learn the content for the newly-designed galleries and visitor experiences. Following the completion of their online training, these volunteers have put their knowledge to work every day with visitors of all ages. In addition, we recently completed our first in-person volunteer training since the pandemic. Twenty new volunteers spent their summer here at the Museum, rigorously learning everything about the Museum’s artifacts and storylines in order to share information with visitors and ensure they have an enjoyable and informative visit. We are thrilled that the Museum is overflowing with happy, friendly, and knowledgeable volunteers. We hope you’ll come by often and get to know them!

Such dedication from our volunteers deserves recognition. Recently, we selected our Volunteer of the Year, Helena Armandula, and joined her as she was recognized along with fellow San Diego County volunteers at the annual North County Philanthropy Council luncheon. At our annual Volunteer Holiday Party, we presented what we call our “Above and Beyond” awards to volunteers Brian Donaldson and Diane Scholfield who have gone way above the call of duty to support the Museum. We also recognized volunteers for their daily instrument tunings and willingness to help out in a pinch. And our dear Charter Volunteer Jerry Carp (with us since 1999) reached a landmark milestone of 4,000 hours of service.