From the Secretary: Appreciation amid adversity
Secretary Bunch has a message for Smithsonian volunteers as we begin Volunteer Appreciation Month during a time of national crisis.
Dear volunteers:
Together, we are facing unprecedented challenges during this time of unanticipated adversity. As we do so, it is important to recognize the people in our lives who make a difference in our communities. For the Smithsonian community, that starts with you, our volunteers, whose experience, enthusiasm, and energy help make the Smithsonian a priceless gift to the American people and visitors from around the world.
As we begin this atypical Volunteer Appreciation Month, when I cannot thank you in person, we should remember the tremendous impact made during the past year by nearly 7,000 on-site volunteers and almost 2,000 active digital volunteers.
Two of the Institution’s biggest events in 2019 relied heavily on the contributions of our volunteers: the opening of Deep Time at the National Museum of Natural History and the National Air and Space Museum’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. You also helped get our exciting Open Access initiative off the ground in February, making nearly 3 million of our digital assets available to everyone. Of course, your work is not limited to big, one-time events—it is evident every day.
During the course of regular operations, volunteers help care for our collections, partner with our researchers on citizen science projects, work with our educators, and help put on annual events like the Folklife Festival. You work behind the scenes in myriad ways at our museums, research centers, libraries, archives, and education centers. And, of course, our public-facing volunteers serve millions of visitors every year. In all, our volunteers logged more than half-a-million volunteer hours throughout all Smithsonian locations.
And as we become an increasingly digital institution, our digital volunteers are helping lead that transformation. In October, the National Air and Space Museum held an Ada Lovelace Day edit-a-thon in which volunteers updated Wikipedia articles about the history of women in STEM in the United States. It was the third edit-a-thon in conjunction with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative (AWHI). And at the Transcription Center, volunteers have transcribed 20,000 pages of Freedmen’s Bureau records, nearly 3,000 pages of African American history, and more than 650 pages of AWHI-related girlhood history.
Our volunteers reflect the kind of diversity and inclusiveness that we strive for at the Smithsonian. People of all ages and backgrounds give us their time and effort. A quarter are multilingual, speaking or signing 58 different languages; they all have stories to tell – in whatever language – about what volunteering at the Smithsonian means to them. Many of those stories can be found on our Volunteer Voices section of the Torch website throughout April; I urge you to explore them at https://torch.si.edu/category/volunteer-voices/.
On behalf of the entire Smithsonian, I offer my thanks to our volunteers for everything you do. Stay safe, take care of yourselves, and I look forward to welcoming all of you back.
Lonnie Bunch
Secretary
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Posted: 1 April 2020
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