Honoring Frances!

So happy to take the time to honor an awesome volunteer,

our own fabulous Frances. 

Frances has been working for our non-profit organization for 15 years.  Two years ago, she retired from her position as Program Coordinator for the Los Gatos Art Docents   It was no surprise that Frances promptly turned around and became a Volunteer. She has loved the organization so much that she wanted to start anew …in fact she was so dedicated to this idea, that she decided to go through the 10 week training program we run annually for new docent trainees. Frances knows so much about how our organization works that she didn’t need to do this.  She is so dedicated to being the best “volunteer” that she wanted to make sure she took the time to learn the program as if she was a newbie and practice her skills with other new trainees.

After her training, Frances continues to dedicate her time and energy to organize and lead.  We have an annual art show where we coordinate over 3,000 works of art from every student in the Los Gatos Union School district in the Spring.  Frances showed great initiative in stepping up to lead this project as a new volunteer for the past two years. Her organizational skills and efforts have been a tremendous help to running this art show with great efficiency and effectiveness.  She creatively developed a “headquarters” system to manage and streamline the project. There is now a central repository in our office that is used to communicate, organize and process this event for our 3,000 students. She posts layout maps, outlines, to do lists, and progress notes all in one place.  This way anyone who comes in to volunteer on this project, has a clear understanding as to the progress and what needs to be done next. In addition to a vast amount of prep work, Frances also coordinates the activities of the 30-40 volunteers that are needed to display and exhibit the artwork.

At the same time as she re-dedicated her life as a volunteer, she took the initiative to mentor our new Program Coordinator.  She did not just disappear in a “blissful” retirement way- instead she has made herself completely available to help train and answer any questions in this transition.  What could have been a difficult period was not at all, due to the fact that she took the time and initiative to become even more involved as a volunteer.

Frances continues to be  an exemplary volunteer. She not only does the required lessons we ask of all volunteers out in the classrooms, but she is currently stepping up to perform additional duties on the Executive Board as a Co-Secretary this year as well.  We are so lucky to have Frances’ organizational skills, dedication, and passion for art education as all these attributes continue to make our Art Docent Organization a thriving and pleasant place to be. ​