Volunteer

“Light­ing up the imag­i­na­tion of young adults about our sea his­to­ry and mar­itime work­force indus­tries is a unique way to “give back” to my com­mu­ni­ty! ”
Den­nis Bopp, Docent/Board member

Are you look­ing to give back to the com­mu­ni­ty? Learn more about the mar­itime world? Meet new friends? Then The Mis­sis­sip­pi Ship­build­ing and Mar­itime Cen­ter is the place for you! MSMC offers excit­ing vol­un­teer oppor­tu­ni­ties for many diverse skill sets. 

Start vol­un­teer­ing at MSMC today!

Train­ing is pro­vid­ed and no pri­or knowl­edge is required. Sched­ules are flex­i­ble, though we do rec­om­mend that vol­un­teers spend at least four hours a month at the museum.

VOLUNTEER POSITIONS

EVENTS
MSMC hosts a vari­ety of events includ­ing an annu­al cel­e­bra­tion, month­ly indus­try pro­fes­sion­al net­work­ing events, lec­tures, spe­cial fundrais­ing events, and more. We’re always look­ing for vol­un­teers who love think­ing on their feet and help­ing our event’s team plan and exe­cute these events. Vol­un­teer time would include set­ting up for events, bar­tend­ing, assist­ing cater­ing, wel­com­ing guests, run­ning audio-visu­al equip­ment, tear­ing down events, and more.

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH
The MS Ship­build­ing and Mar­itime Edu­ca­tion Cen­ter offers numer­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties to work with the pub­lic. Vol­un­teers would assist the Out­reach & Edu­ca­tion Coor­di­na­tor in a wide vari­ety of edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams, including:

Month­ly Fam­i­ly Days offer pro­gram­ming for ele­men­tary-aged chil­dren and their par­ents. Vol­un­teers help assist with imple­ment­ing lessons and activ­i­ties while work­ing with vis­it­ing fam­i­lies.
The Lec­ture Series fea­tures experts in mar­itime his­to­ry and indus­try fields. Vol­un­teers assist in set­ting up refresh­ments and oth­er nec­es­sary tasks pri­or to and fol­low­ing the lec­tures.
Out­reach oppor­tu­ni­ties offer vol­un­teers time in local ele­men­tary class­rooms assist­ing MSMC staff with trav­el­ing lessons and activities.

FRONT DESK
MSMC is work­ing to re-open our doors to walk-in vis­i­tors. Front Desk vol­un­teers can help us reach that goal! Work­ing the front desk, you’d be respon­si­ble for accept­ing pay­ments from patrons, greet­ing vis­i­tors, and assist­ing guests as needed.

RESEARCH AND CONTENT
MSMC is cur­rent­ly search­ing for vol­un­teers who are inter­est­ed in assist­ing our staff to write arti­cles and curate vir­tu­al exhibits on a vari­ety of top­ics. These posi­tions can be done from home and would require occa­sion­al touch-base meetings.

SHIP MODEL MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR
Main­tain­ing our col­lec­tion of mod­els is always a major project! We are always look­ing for ship mod­el­ers who can assist with the main­te­nance and repair of our col­lec­tion. You would work to assess any mod­els that may need repairs and use your expert mod­el­ing skills to repair any dam­age or wear and tear the mod­els may have suffered.

COLLECTION AND ARCHIVES
Love work­ing with muse­um col­lec­tions and arti­facts? Join our cura­to­r­i­al team to help keep our col­lec­tion up to date, intake new items, research items, and keep the col­lec­tion orga­nized. Vol­un­teer time would include fil­ing col­lec­tions paper­work, updat­ing our col­lec­tions data­base, pho­tograph­ing items, clean­ing items, pack­ing col­lec­tion items for mov­ing and stor­age, and research­ing items that are miss­ing information.

DIGITAL MEDIA
Love pho­tog­ra­phy, videog­ra­phy? We need you to assist with dig­i­tiz­ing some of our phys­i­cal exhibits for a vir­tu­al plat­form. This would include pho­tog­ra­phy, videog­ra­phy, tran­scrip­tion, web design/development, and data management.

DOCENTS
Docents are encour­aged to design their own tour of the muse­um high­light­ing their per­son­al inter­ests. No pri­or knowl­edge is required and all vol­un­teers receive train­ing from The Mis­sis­sip­pi Ship­build­ing and Mar­itime Center’s expe­ri­enced guides. Tours usu­al­ly last about 15 min­utes and each guide leads no more than ten vis­i­tors at a time.

Docents are essen­tial to our museum’s mis­sion – the more guides we have, the more hours we can sched­ule open, allow­ing us to share the won­der and influ­ence of mar­itime his­to­ry and indus­try with a wider audi­ence. Join the MSMC fam­i­ly today!