You’ll Love Volunteering at PEEC!
Here are some of our opportunities…
-
Docent: The ambassadors of PEEC.
Work a regular shift or fill in as needed. Docents are the first impression visitors have of us, and they handle visitor questions, orientation to exhibits, gift shop purchases—everything! It is a fun job interacting with a lot of nice, happy-to-be-here people and keeping up with all the goings on at PEEC. Docents work in shifts of 2-4 hours and should be friendly and customer service oriented.
-
Data Entry: Work when you like and use our computers.
-
School Education Help: Help kids connect with nature & have fun too!
Our Education Coordinator always needs help with school field trips and children’s programs. These are usually short-term 1-2 hour events and involve mostly helping keep track of the kids and helping set up/take down any event materials. School education volunteers should enjoy kids and any experience with crafts or games is helpful. A background in education is preferred.
-
Planetarium Projection: A great technical job for science and astronomy types.
We also need people to help run our planetarium projectors for Night Sky shows and other media screenings. This is a skilled position and we provide training, but volunteers should have a technical aptitude and some knowledge of astronomy. Projectionists give a brief presentation before each screening so you should be comfortable with some public speaking.
-
Mailing Parties: Stuff envelopes, stick on labels, and eat cookies together!
We do periodic mailing parties to get our bulk mailings out, including our quarterly newsletter, fundraising drives and other mailings. It helps to get as many hands on as possible and get the job done, which also makes it more fun! Volunteers need no special skills, just an attention to detail and an openness to meet new people.
-
Program Presenters: Share your special knowledge and help educate others.
If you have a background in or knowledge of any topic that might be of interest to our members and the public please contact us! We are always on the lookout for people to help give talks, slide shows, presentations or other events that support our mission of enriching lives by strengthening people’s connection to our canyons, mesas, mountains and skies. Program presenters help build community and inspire us to learn and better ourselves, so if you spent a few years studying a wildlife habitat, if you are a forest fire fighter, environmental scientist, amateur astronomer, backwoods survivalist, medicinal herb expert or have any such background, please consider sharing your passion, knowledge and expertise!
-
Fundraising/Marketing: Bring your grant writing, schmoozing, publicity or graphics skills to PEEC!
Have you ever researched a grant? Do you have experience with social media, public relations, marketing, graphic design or promotion? Do you know a lot of people and do a lot of socializing and entertaining? Put these valuable skills to work for The Nature Center. Every non-profit needs a small army of fundraising and marketing angels to help us with these important efforts. Even if your experience is limited we can provide some training to get you going. Whether you help design a new brochure, call attendees of our programs to gather demographic info or host a PEEC party to introduce your influential friends to our cause, you can really make a difference!
-
Critter Care: Help look after our salamanders, frogs, snakes and bugs.
If you love small animals and learning how to care for them, you can help take care of our critters. You will be trained how to clean their tanks and bring them food and water. Your love of and sensitivity to animals will help you with this fun and important task. Routine critter care takes place on Mondays and Fridays 2:30-3:30pm, but there may also be odd jobs available that could be done at other times. All training is provided, but because of the training involved, we can only accept a limited number of volunteers, and we ask that prospective volunteers be willing to help on a weekly basis for at least one year.
-
Critter Outreach: Talk to visitors about animals.
If you love animals, you can learn to do public animal demos and answer questions about our live animal exhibits. Your love of and sensitivity to animals, especially snakes, will help you with this fun and important task. Because of the training required, we ask that prospective volunteers be willing help on a regular basis for at least one year.
-
Odd jobs: Be on call for a little of this and a little of that.
We can use all sorts of help, so don’t worry if you want to volunteer but don’t fit into any of the above categories. We need help with grounds clean up, gardening help, Wildlife Habitat Area maintenance, help with special events or programs, painting, building, cleaning…all sorts of tasks! You never know when we’ll need someone to shovel sand into our new sandbox in the nature play area or help clean up after a big presentation, do some weeding or collect some nature materials for a kids activity. Volunteers need only enthusiasm!
We track a lot of information about our services such as visitor numbers, program attendance, program ratings, Planetarium show sales and so on because we care about how we’re doing. And all of this information needs to be entered into our database so we can use it. Data Entry Volunteers should have a little computer experience, Mac helpful, and we can train too—it’s not hard!
For more information about volunteering, please contact us any time!