A Thank You to our Docents

As the Curator of Education, I have the pleasure of working closely with the Evansville Museum Docent Association. This group of dedicated volunteers has supported the Museum since 1965, and this year was no exception. However, as many of you have probably noticed, 2020 ended up being a bit different than the year prior. So, I wanted to take the time in my last blog post of the year to really highlight how much the Docents have stepped up to the plate and hit it out of the park. 

In a normal year, the Docents lead guided tours for approximately six thousand school children and adults. Most of these guests visit during the spring field trip season between March and May. Well, lockdown struck just as we were gearing up for hundreds of visiting school children, and every single field trip was cancelled. What’s a Docent to do? 

Well, this wasn’t time wasted. The Docents and I decided to film our extensive training program and create a digital resource to benefit current and future Docents. Together, we filmed 9 videos totaling over 4 and half hours of training materials. 

But that was just the beginning. Once we got the hang of filming, we started creating videos for the general public based on our guided tours. This turned into the Virtual Visit Project, sponsored by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana’s Accessing the Arts Anywhere. So far, we have five videos completed, with many more on the way. You can watch the completed videos at this link: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPUYmwu12sQ32yQYUaPln_SKUWTfWMiqP

A friend of mine recently reached out to tell me that she loved that we were making “lemonade out of lemons” with the videos. I thought that this was such a lovely description. While the Docents and I can’t wait until it’s safe enough to lead in-person tours, we are so happy we have this way of sharing the Museum virtually. 

This was a really tough year. I want to thank the Evansville Museum’s Docents for their continued dedication and creativity during this time. To the Docents: you all rock!!

Karen Malone 

Ruby C. Strickland Curator of Education