WMG Docent Volunteers make things happen!
What is a WMG Volunteer Docent?
Docents are Watershed Management Group's volunteer ambassadors, both out in the community and at our urban demonstration site - the Living Lab & Learning Center. They fill a variety of vital roles throughout the organization that support our mission to develop community-based solutions to ensure the long-term prosperity of people and health of the environment. If you are passionate about restoring our rivers that used to flow year-round, advocating for water security in the Southwest, and fostering stewardship of our precious water resources, consider being a WMG docent! Read below for testimonials from docents on their experiences.
Docent Training Program
WMG conducts an intergenerational peer learning experience where our young adult interns come together with our docents of all ages to build understanding of the work WMG does with our local Santa Cruz River watershed, to foster opportunities for personal conservation actions, and to build relationships with other WMG staff, volunteers, and our diverse community. In 2024, these sessions will take place on Fridays, 3-5pm, from the end of August with the schedule confirmed by mid-June.
Duties & Responsibilities
We work with each docent to identify and develop volunteer activities that fit their skill set and interests. These activities can include, but are not limited to: giving tours of our public demonstration site, outreach at community events, assisting with family and neighborhood educational events, data collection and monitoring, rain garden care, Spanish translation, Latinx community engagement, and assisting visitors at our Welcome Center. Docents contribute to a welcoming and inclusive environment for our culturally-rich community including Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and Latinx community members. Click here to read about the specific docent roles available. Docent roles can also be developed in line with docent interests and WMG's needs (chicken care, gardening?)
And, if you are interested in volunteering but can't commit to the Docent program, please let us know. For instance, people with basic carpentry and maintenance skills, gardening and chicken care, or retail and visitor service interests are always great to have around. Please contact Julie Regalado at jregalado@watershedmg.org to discuss possibilities!
Qualifications
We are seeking individuals with a shared passion for our mission - experience in the watershed management field is not necessary! Being a WMG docent is generally not conducive for people who work more than part-time or have other responsibilities that equate to full-time. We aim to have our docents complete 20 hours a month (approximately 5 hrs/week) of volunteer work.
Bilingual English and Spanish speakers are encouraged to apply! We are always looking to expand our educational offerings to a wider audience and you can help us meet that goal by supporting our spanish communication and outreach. A portion of WMG's staff is bilingual, but there may be times when there are no Spanish speakers available, in which case it will be helpful for applicants to have a working grasp of English as well.
¡Necesitamos personas bilingües que hablen inglés y español! Siempre estamos buscando ampliar nuestra ofertas de educación y tú nos puedes ayudar con eso al apoyarnos en la comunicación e involucración en español. Una parte del equipo de WMG es bilingüe, pero habrá momentos cuando no hay quien se pueda comunicar en español, por lo cual sería útil que los aplicantes tengan también un entendimiento básico del inglés.
Benefits
This program provides the opportunity to build skills and knowledge in different areas such as community science, environmental education, environmental justice, Sonoran Desert ecology, water harvesting, and river restoration. It is also an opportunity to contribute skills you may already have honed through your life's work and can now apply to the grassroots efforts of our organization. Lastly, it is an opportunity to become a member of our vibrant and diverse team here at Watershed Management Group!
Requirements
- Attend Fall Friday training sessions late August - mid-December from 3-5 p.m. - with schedule to be confirmed by mid-June 2024. The training also includes occasional assistance at outreach and WMG events on the evenings and weekends. You can expect both in-person, experiential instruction, some virtual trainings, and field excursions taught by WMG staff. Docents will be learning in an inter-generational environment as part of a cohort with WMG’s WaterWRLD interns (Water as a platform for Workforce Readiness and Leadership Development).
- One year commitment from Jan-Dec. Upon completion of the fall training, docents are asked to commit to one year of service and aim to complete 20 hours a month of volunteer hours for their WMG related projects.
- Attend Monthly Docent Meetings with the whole Docent Cohort. These meetings are on the first Monday of each month at 5:30 p.m.
- Assist with WMG events and outreach opportunities. WMG hosts a variety of events throughout the year and we need your help!
- Pay $75 program fee. Scholarships available.
Questions?
If you have questions about the program, please contact our Education Program Director, Julie Regalado at jregalado@watershedmg.org or 520-396-3266 ex. 5
Docent Testimonials
"My favorite part of volunteering with Family Programming at WMG is seeing the kids’ faces light up with excitement and interest when they learn something new at our program. I truly feel at home as a Docent at WMG, I feel like I am making a difference in the lives of people in my community. I have also learned much myself - expanding my knowledge of living hydro-locally and putting many of the teachings into practice." - Laurel Pollard, Docent Since 2022
"Through my experience of being a docent, I have learned so much. While volunteering in our Welcome Center, I have learned about water conservation and the importance of involving the community in conservation actions. The more I experienced this, the more I brought home and shared with my children and grandchildren about the importance of conserving water in the desert. It has become a personal mission of mine to continue to involve my family in these issues and work with WMG to help ensure a sustainable future for them." - April Lewis, Docent Since 2022
Current Docents:
Deanna Campos
Deanna is a native Tucsonan and is a semi- retired administrator. She served in education for over 31 years and continues to have the passion for education, specifically, water conservation. She is excited to become a docent for the WSM group and hopes to shed light on water issues in Tucson and surrounding areas.
Ray Colvin
I read” Dune” at the age of 17 and immediately read it again. I have never looked at water the same since those readings. I became an avid river runner and hiker largely to be around water and its wonder. Water in any form. Reverence is the only thing we can bring. I am most proud of the fact that I have raised two of the most remarkable women I know and they have a respect for water, as well. During my career I developed restaurant and hotel concepts, published books, wrote curriculum for Le Cordon Bleu International and ended up being the president of a nursing college. The desert has always drawn me and where water and the desert come together is magical. My motto is, “The River always wins.” Those who are successful understand how to sustain the flow and they just get in the boat.
Glenn Dunn
He/Him
Glenn is a retired engineer and has been a resident of Tucson for 35 years. He is an active member of the WMG co-op and regularly participates in rainwater and greywater harvesting workshops. His interests include passive and active solar, rainwater/greywater harvesting, and woodworking. Glenn also volunteers for the Boy Scouts of America and Habitat for Humanity.
Jeannie Fransen
She/Her
I’ve lived in Tucson for 30 years and I love Southern Arizona! I taught special education for several years in the Tucson Unified School District. In 2023 I received my certification as an end of life doula. Helping people become more comfortable with death is another interest of mine. I also spend time exploring Mount Lemmon, jogging, gardening and oil painting.
Nicandro Guereque
He/Him
My name is Nicandro Guereque (He/Him) and I’m a freshman at the University of Arizona currently pursuing a Major in Music Composition and a Minor in Film. I’m originally from Colorado but moved to Tucson in 2009. I’m an Intern helping with the Hydro-Local Soundscape concert project and outreach for the Flow365 watershed monitoring program. In High School, I attended a sustainability conference in Berlin where we looked at the city’s urban farms and co-ops to see the ways that Berlin was environmentally friendly. This trip made me realize the role I can play in my community regarding sustainability issues like water conservation. I believe that Music and Art are important for reaching out to people and bringing awareness to climate change and the loss of our natural resources. My goal with this internship is to learn more about the history of Tucson’s rivers and watersheds and have an active role in helping my community. I’m looking forward to my experience here at the Watershed Management group.
Brenda Hughey
She/Her
Brenda relocated to Tucson from the Eastern U.S. two years ago. She loves and appreciates the beauty of the desert as well as the green of Upstate New York. She is a retired Army officer who held various management positions in the areas of logistics, administration, physical fitness training/development, and casualty affairs during her 20-year career. She is grateful to have the time to volunteer and support the highly important WMG mission of restoring the watershed in this region.
Catherine Land Evilsizor
She/Her
Catherine recently retired from her work administering a federal grant program at the Arizona Department of Education, working with K-12 schools throughout Arizona. She retired in order to work on addressing the climate emergency. Water issues have been her priority for some time, so she is happy to help out at Watershed Management- believing it to be one of the most effective and exciting organizations locally working on water and related issues. She and many of her neighbors and friends actively and passively harvest rainwater, have homes and cars/bicycles powered with electricity and grow native and low water use plants on the lands they steward.
Carol Margolis
She/Her
Carol was born and raised in upstate NY near the Erie Canal. She came to Arizona for a college education in anthropology and stayed on as a computer jack-of-all-trades and now works in medical research. In 2007, Carol became a graduate of the Master Watershed Steward program through the Pima County Cooperative Extension Service. Carol’s graduation project was to map the entire arundo stands in the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area before it was cut down and doused with herbicide. Her goal is to interpret rainwater harvesting knowledge into mainstream practice through education and demonstration.
Laurel Pollard
She/Her
Laurel lives in Stone Curves, a co-housing community of 48 households in Tucson. They cooperate in maintaining our six-acre permaculture landscape, and I co-lead our ‘Green Team’. She's not a trained permaculturist, so she wants to learn more as a WMG docent. Laurel has taught classes in Recycling and in Reducing Consumerism; she has fun seeing how close she can get to zero waste. She is a kayaker and last year paddled the mighty Rillito. (It was a few inches deep at the time, so there was a lot of portaging.) She wants to be part of reviving our rivers and is eager to meet fellow environmental enthusiasts. Laurel is single, a mother of a son and daughter who both live in Tucson (lucky her!) And last December she welcomed a granddaughter, the joy of her life.
Sabina Quiroz
She/Her
Sabina was born and raised in Tucson AZ, where she grew up to admire the land of the Saguaros and the Creosote that makes our desert so unique. She graduated from the University of Arizona in 2020 with a B.S. in Management Information Systems. Sabina grew up with a fond love for nature through cycling, camping, and hiking with her dad and sister and is excited to lean into the conservation and education work that Watershed Management has to offer the Tucson community. In her free time, you will find Sabina crocheting, building miniature houses, and going for walks.
Jos
é Rodriguez
He/Him
José was born and raised in San Luis Potosí,Mexico and has been living in Tucson, Arizona since 1994. In México, José obtained his Bachelor's degree in Agronomy from the University of Autonoma de Chapingo, specializing in irrigation systems. José received his Master's of Science degree from the Colegio de Postgraduados in water resources. He has also received several certifications in topics such as runoff management, irrigation units, and system analysis. For the past 24 years José has been working for the State of Arizona implementing and supporting environmental projects along the Arizona/Sonora border. José was directly involved in water harvesting, green infrastructure, air quality studies, composting toilets, and wastewater related issues. Just recently, he installed a small water harvesting system and small basin on his property with many similar projects on the horizon.José enjoys hiking, working outdoors, playing guitar, painting, writing, and gardening. Although the Tucson region is drastically different from where he was born and raised, José has developed a deep relationship with the desert and enjoys the desert beauty, especially its sunrise and sunset. To enjoy the desert beauty he walks, runs, or quietly takes in the landscape around him. José is happy to join the Docent program at WMG and hopes to learn new things from others while making a positive impact on the community.
Sally Sherman
She/Her
Sally abandoned a perfectly good graphic design career in Vermont to become a rootless nomad exploring Mother Nature's gigantic, enormously varied jigsaw puzzle. Living close to the earth has a way of teaching appreciation for things so often taken for granted . . . such as water. After 10 years of wandering all over North America, Australia, and NZ, it isn't a great surprise that she fell in love with the miracle of the Sonoran Desert and settled in Tucson. Her education about the natural world has expanded as a docent at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum since 2010. Now she can't imagine anything more rewarding than spreading the surprising news that living with a focused water consciousness is actually a bucket of fun.
Kimberly Simpson
I am relatively new to Tucson, finally joining some of my family that relocated to Arizona from Pennsylvania almost 40 years ago. The Sonoran Desert is fascinating and there is so much to learn about its history! I believe that it bestows upon us a great gift which is in our hands to steward. Learning and working alongside this multigenerational WMG community helps me to help others take actionable steps toward the improvement and restoration of our watershed. Even small changes in daily living can have a big impact.
Jennifer Spawn
I'm passionate about the environment, self-improvement and making meaningful connections. Permaculture principles have been guiding my life for nearly two decades. Its so much easier to work with nature instead of against it! An Arizona native, I’ve been in Tucson/Marana for around 15 years. I attended the University of Arizona from 2004-2009, studying Wildlife Management in the School of Natural Resources. My daughter and I love to be outside, exploring trails in the Tortolitas, road tripping around the state and of course exploring new cuisine! I love to garden, save seeds and admire the tiny ecosystems in my yard. I’ve held a variety of professional positions both inside and apart from the sustainability world. As a docent for WMG, I am expanding my love of community engagement through knowledge and experience sharing.
Dan Stormont
Dan is a computer engineer by training, with a BS from the University of Arizona, MS from the University of New Mexico, and an Electrical Engineer degree from Utah State University. He is the Tucson Regional Manager for TEALS, a Microsoft Philanthropies program that connects industry professionals with high school teachers to bring computer science into Tucson schools. Dan was previously the Green Living Co-op Manager for WMG. Dan is also a member of WMG’s Monsoon Squad, River Run Network, and is a certified local phenology leader with the National Phenology Network. He is involved in many activities in the community, including serving on the core team for Sustainable Tucson.
Bill Wilkening
He/Him
Bill earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines, plus an M.S. in Reliability Engineering from the University of Arizona, and worked for 35 years with several companies. Tucson is a special place for his family, as his wife can trace her roots back six generations in the Tucson area. With WMG, Bill sees an opportunity to help rebuild Tucson as a place where you know and help your neighbor. He volunteers teaching middle school students about engineering by having them design water harvesting systems and enjoys backpacking, swimming, and cycling.
Barbara Woolford
A graduate of Arizona State University, Barbara saw the error of her ways and moved to Tucson after retiring from NASA in 2012. Her love of the desert led her first to become a docent at Tohono Chul, and now with the WMG. She is also an active member of Club Camera Tucson. She has become an advocate for native plants and is eager to support redevelopment of our watershed.