Location: Lincoln Park Zoo
Date: Friday, June 13, 2014; 11:00 am-3:00 pm
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| It was a nice day to be at the zoo |
Like ‘Adler Planetarium’, the Zoo also required 4 rounds of training and
orientation and this was the final one before I could be eligible as a ‘GRV’.
Furthermore, they schedule these training's sporadically and rarely on
weekends. So I had to take a day off
from work to attend this. I was asked to
come to the information center at the zoo, known as ‘Gateway’. I arrived to find
that 3 other volunteers were waiting there along with our instructor,
Jeremy. He took us to the 'GRV' offices,
which are located in the ‘Primate House’
and told us the code to get inside. Once
inside, we were joined by another staff member Tessa, whom I remembered as a
former ‘ACS’ employee and whom I had
seen at ‘Walk & Roll’ last
year. It’s indeed a small world when it
comes to nonprofits.
Besides me there was another lady
and an older couple who were planning to volunteer together. As an icebreaker Jeremy asked who our
favorite animal was. I said that mine
was a dog, someone who wasn’t even allowed inside the zoo! Jeremy then asked us what the zoo meant for
each of us and everyone had different answers.
I said that for me it was family and friends, since no one goes to the
zoo by themselves, unless they have a specific task in mind like
photography. Tessa then asked us about
our earliest zoo memory or our first memory with this zoo. I once again repeated my story from childhood
where the monkey pulled my hair. For
this particular zoo, I told them how I was exploring 'Lincoln Park' one evening
after moving to Chicago and had stumbled upon the zoo by accident. I couldn't believe it then and I still find
it amazing that the zoo is free to the public.
We then went through the handouts that were in front of us,
including how to handle some tough questions, such as “Why don’t you have elephants at the zoo?” Our response was to turn
the question into something positive such pointing out that “Yes, we once did have elephants, but moved
them away and now that space is used for rhino’s and oh by the way, the rhino
just had a baby”. We were told not
to communicate animal names to visitors since most of the animals responded to
their names and that could lead to some problems. Beth, another staff member, came and talked
about the ‘Guest Engagement Ambassador’
or ‘GEA’ program and how different that
program is from ‘GRV’. We learnt that ‘GEA’s’ walk around with carts and engage visitors in discussions
on focused topics. It sounded very much
like my role at ‘Adler’.
Next the 4 volunteers in
training, along with Tessa and Jeremy went out into the zoo. It was a nice day and several visitors were
enjoying their day over here. We walked
over to one of the entrances, but not before stopping over to look at the baby
kangaroo. At the gates we did some
roleplaying with Jeremy being a visitor and the two ladies in our volunteer
group being the ‘GRV’s’. In the first scenario Jeremy was playing nice
and in the second, he was a disgruntled guest.
In both cases, the women did a great job in handling him. After this we walked over to the ‘Farm In The Zoo’ area and saw several
kids who were on a field trip. They
wanted to pet goats, but it was their feeding time and so were not
outside. We went inside the volunteer
area for this section and met the folks there.
We would not be working over here, though it is nice to know the
location and the people.
Next it was time for a lunch and
all of us went our own way for 45 minutes.
I grabbed a sandwich in the cafeteria, which was bustling with
visitors. We assembled after lunch
outside the ‘Lion House’ and Jeremy
talked about handling messages on the two way radio, including dealing with
lost children and suspicious materials.
Besides radios, we would also be carrying counters that we were to click
with each interaction with the visitors, and that included smiling! We went back inside for a quick office tour,
including how to use the check-in system, which wished me Happy Birthday!
We saw the “Volunteer Wall Of Fame”, where you get an animal sticker after 100
hours and the sticker then keeps moving up a winding path as you put in more
time. There were a few stickers that
were quite high up. Also saw the
scheduling board where our daily assignments would be posted. Our final stop was at ‘Gateway’, which in the information center for the zoo. Every volunteer would be posted their at
least once during their weekly shift. We
met 2 volunteers there who have been doing this for almost 18 years! They told us our typical duties, which would
be to hand out maps, rent strollers and of course, point people towards the
nearest bathroom. With this place, we
were done for the day. Now I was a
certified volunteer with the zoo and my first shift would be on June 29th. While I don’t suppose I would last anywhere
close to 18 years, I hope I am at least able to achieve my animal sticker for
the wall.
“The views expressed on this weblog are mine alone and do not
necessarily reflect the views of my employer.”
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