UC Santa Cruz Farm Seeks Docents To Lead Public Tours

Training begins March 1

SANTA CRUZ, CA–For Jim Rollins, it’s all about the bees.

Rollins is a volunteer docent at the UC Santa Cruz Farm, and he gets a kick out of guiding tour groups around the campus’s 25-acre organic farm and garden. Reflecting on what he gets out of being a docent, Rollins recalled the day a group of inner-city teenagers from Los Angeles visited the Farm.

"I guess they’d never seen plants before, and they were frightened to death of bees," said Rollins. "Well, one of the things I do on most of my tours is stop by the beehive and let a bee land on my finger. These kids just couldn’t believe that, so I explained that bees aren’t out to sting people–they just want to get their honey. I told them that if you’re not aggressive with bees, they won’t be aggressive with you. It’s a metaphor for life, too."

Rollins remembered with satisfaction that by the end of that tour, one of the boys who had been most afraid of the bees was repeatedly singling out the insects and encouraging them to land on his finger. "It’s fun to teach, and you learn from teaching, too," said Rollins, a "mostly retired" Emmy award-winning tape editor who lives in downtown Santa Cruz and visits the Farm almost daily.

Docents are the generous folks who lead the free tours of the UC Santa Cruz Farm & Garden for the public and schoolchildren. Aspiring docents are invited to attend an information session and Farm tour on Thursday, March 1, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Louise Cain Gatehouse near the entrance to the Farm. Classes will take place Thursday afternoons March 8-April 19 from 1 to 6 p.m. at the Farm.

During the eight-week course, participants learn about organic gardening, sustainable agriculture, horticultural techniques, composting, education, environmental interpretation, and much more. Upon completion of the training, docents are asked to give two tours and attend one educational meeting per month for a total monthly commitment of about six hours. The training and all materials cost $35. For more information and an application, call John Fisher (831) 459-3248 or e-mail [johnfish@cats.ucsc.edu][2].

Kerry Hosley was drawn to the docent class one year ago out of a desire to learn about organic farming and gardening. The intensive training left her wanting more, and she enjoys the monthly potluck classes for continuing docents.

"For someone like me who is a perennial student, I will never feel done," said Hosley, adding: "Being a docent is a regular opportunity to enjoy one of the most beautiful pieces of property on the Central Coast. The view is incredible, and the land is so beautiful. I’m getting as much or more out of being a volunteer as I’m giving."

As a lifelong gardener who now lives beneath the redwoods in Boulder Creek, Rita Miles gets her gardening "fix" as a volunteer, sharing her knowledge with groups as diverse as college students from Japan and senior citizens enrolled in a Central Valley community college class. "I try to schedule tours with a variety of people," said Miles. "I had a group from the Middle East a couple of years ago, and there was a group from Taiwan on an agricultural tour of the Central Coast. A lot of people come through here. It’s not just locals."

Visitors are universally impressed by the power of compost, however. "People are always astonished that compost is the only soil amendment that’s used at the Farm," said Hosley. And of course, astonishment provides a perfect "teaching moment," in which docents can explain the process of recycling food waste into compost that nourishes the soil.

"I love teaching kids that most of life is in the dirt itself," said Rollins. "It’s full of bugs and worms and nutrients, and it even smells good."

Docents are welcome to participate in as many aspects of the Farm as they’re interested in, noted John Fisher, outreach coordinator for the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS), which runs the Farm, the 4-acre Alan Chadwick Garden, and sponsors the docent training. Opportunities abound to learn about the politics of food production and distribution, the aesthetics of gardening, the value of growing organic food, and there’s always a need for another strong back if volunteers want to pitch in with physical labor, too, he said.