Performances Counts: We Missed You at Lunch

Most of us reading this month’s newsletter were not at today’s “Get Discovered” volunteer recruitment lunch (but we’ve managed to discover you anyway!)

While it’s too late to send you a tuna sandwich, it’s not too late to think about how you (or your friends) can become engaged in one of the most exciting volunteer opportunities in Baltimore.

Leading a school group through Remembering Auschwitz: History, Holocaust Humanity
Leading a school group through Remembering Auschwitz: History, Holocaust Humanity

Since this is “Performance Counts”, let me share just a few stats.  Our volunteers last year included 7 front desk aides, 23 docents, 7 shop assistants, 13 library and archives aides, 28 special projects volunteers and 28 JMM Board members.  These 106 volunteers worked a total of 7557 hours.

>Front desk volunteers meet and greet visitors—including hundreds of teachers and chaperones on field trips to the JMM as they pass by on their way to Esther’s Place, the exhibit galleries and our historic synagogues.

>Docents conducted over 350 synagogue tours last year.

>Library and Archival volunteers scanned and uploaded more than 7,000 photos from the Baltimore Jewish Times, wrote folder lists for 24  boxes, just over 4,000 folders, in JMM’s institutional archives and processed two major new archival accessions, cataloguing them and creating finding aids.

>Other volunteers worked with Holocaust survivors or their families on 91 collages created for the Remembering Auschwitz exhibit.

>Still even more volunteers judged 93 projects for the My Family Story competition.

Even with these impressive stats, we still can do better and that’s why we held a lunch today to let new prospects learn more about the work we have available.

Welcome Wendy!
Welcome Wendy!

It was also a chance to introduce folks to our Volunteer Coordinator, Wendy Davis!  So since most of us weren’t there today, I’m going to let Wendy introduce herself:

I am excited and honored to be the new volunteer coordinator at the Jewish Museum of Maryland.  My awareness of the Lloyd Street synagogue began way back in the 1960s.  As a teenager, I went with a group of fellow teens to see the synagogue at the beginning of the renovation process. And my father, Gordon Salganik, has been supportive of the Museum almost since its inception.  Now it is my turn to support the JMM.

For the past four years I have thoroughly enjoyed being a volunteer docent at JMM. Before my retirement and volunteering at JMM, I was a speech language pathologist in Baltimore City Public Schools. Now, I have a long wish list of things I would like to accomplish as the volunteer coordinator beyond monthly scheduling of the volunteers.  Establishing a lending library for the volunteers, improving our knowledge of the museum’s neighbors, dealing with fellow volunteers’ concerns and addressing their wish lists, and increasing our volunteer corps are at the top of my list!  The best way all this can be accomplished is with the collaboration and support of the wonderful JMM staff and volunteers that are my privilege to call colleagues.

I invite you to drop by to welcome Wendy.  Better yet, make her day by asking her how you can become a colleague at JMM.  Get discovered.

~Marvin

Testing out educational activities for the upcoming Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage exhibit!
Testing out educational activities for the upcoming Discovery and Recovery: Preserving Iraqi Jewish Heritage exhibit!
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