Nia Gooden - Volunteer work at a museum (5-7 points)

 

On November 7th, I volunteered at Clark Atlanta Art Museum for the first time. November 7th was the start of what would be one of my favorite continuous service opportunities. I first registered the volunteering opportunity merely because it seemed like an interesting way to serve the community, but after volunteering just once I quickly saw how much I could get out of it as well. Volunteering at the library consists of sitting behind the entrance desk, greeting museumgoers and directing them to where they need to put their bags, taking demographic information such as the apparent age, race, and gender of those entering the museum, and closing up the museum by turning off all the lights and the videos playing. My personal reaction to working as a volunteer was that the work was simple yet impactful. While they play a small part, volunteers are necessary to keep the museum up and running so that many people can enjoy their experience and know how to properly respect the art and the space. My experience as a volunteer reminded me of the concept of sankofa that I learned in ADW. Sankofa refers to the ideal of turning back to the past to inform our behavior in the future. Museums are so important because they allow us to not only experience art from the current time, but more often view art from the past. Understanding art as well as the history and intention behind it allows us to move forward in the future with an awareness of what has happened in the past, leading us to know how to make a better, more equitable future. Knowing that I was able to contribute to the distribution of historical knowledge made me feel that my service was especially effective and beneficial to both the AUC community and all outside museumgoers as well.  

                                                                   By: Nia Gooden