Naper Settlement recruiting youth volunteers to bring history to life
For Sarah Mathews, it was the costume.
This was back in 2005, when the Naperville girl was in fifth grade, and she thought dressing like a kid from the 1890s for a couple days each month during the summer as a volunteer at Naper Settlement sounded like a pretty good deal.
And it was.
Sarah and others like her in the outdoor history museum’s Juniors on the Green program not only donned period garb, but also got the chance to demonstrate some of the chores and games kids from that era tackled, from churning butter to walking on stilts.
Better still, they got to learn more about what life in those days was really like and then to share all that newfound knowledge with settlement visitors.
Sarah is now a junior at Benet Academy and has graduated from the youth program, but she still volunteers regularly at the settlement. Thanks in part to her experiences, she wants to turn her long-running interest in history into a career.
“I started to fall more and more in love with history,” she says, “and more and more in love with Naperville history.”
Important role
Promoting a love of history is just one of the goals of the Naperville museum’s junior interpreters program. It targets students in fourth through eighth grades by offering volunteer opportunities from April to October.
“Becoming a junior interpreter at Naper Settlement is a unique opportunity for young people to develop their public speaking skills and self-confidence and to learn about our community’s history,” museum educator Jo Ruggiero says. “They have an important role at our museum — to help our visitors understand what life was like in the past.”
This month marks the first time in nearly a decade the museum has actively recruited fourth- and fifth-graders for the program. Many of the youngsters who participated in the past have moved on to the next level, officials say.
A mandatory parent meeting for the next batch of would-be volunteers will be from 1 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, at the settlement’s Century Memorial Chapel, 523 S. Webster St. For details about the program, email nsjuniors@naperville.il.us.
Museum educator Rachel Christian says the goal is to recruit about 40 fourth- and fifth-graders to replenish the program that usually involves a total of about 100 youngsters.
Student volunteers are asked to work one three-hour weekend shift a month in April, May, September and October and one weekend and one weekday three-hour shift in June, July and August.
In addition to the obvious benefits of learning about their city’s history, “the kids learn how to speak to the public and get more comfortable doing it,” Christian says. “They become more confident in who they are.”
The costumed youngsters obviously provide some ambience to the settlement, Christian says, but more importantly they provide a portal to help young visitors relate to what’s happening at the outdoor museum.
“They never know what they might be doing,” Christian says of the junior interpreters. One day they might be playing town ball, the next they may be demonstrating a cider press or even a fire pumper.
“They have some fun, they play some games,” Christian says. “Sometimes they just relax.”
Educators provide training for the volunteers and give them packets — one for boys, one for girls — describing the kinds of things they would be doing if they lived in the late 1800s.
Of course, times have changed just a little. Back in the day, most of their clothes would have been handmade by family members. Today, most volunteers — including Sarah — order their duds from the Internet.
History lesson
Sarah says she learned about the Juniors on the Green program when a friend volunteered at Naper Settlement and gave a presentation to their history class.
Once she signed up, she learned there was way more to it than just wearing cool clothes.
These days you can find her as a costumed interpreter at either the print shop or the Log House, sharing the histories of the buildings and the people who may have lived or worked there.
“I like talking to people and teaching them about our city’s history,” she says. “I like learning about our past and how we can apply it to our future or what’s happening now.”
As a veteran of the volunteer corps, she now serves on an advisory committee that provides museum officials with input from kids on the front lines. Their tips have ranged from recruiting more teens from the National Honor Society (volunteer hours count toward high school community service requirements) to creating more opportunities for kids who, unlike Sarah, “are a little afraid of the costumes.”
Working at the settlement, Sarah says, has had a direct impact on her career goals.
“I definitely want to do something in the history field,” she says, with an eye toward someday working full-time at a museum.
Even if she changes her mind, Sarah says the chance to volunteer at Naper Settlement is something to be treasured — and something other kids should consider giving a try.
“It’s just the experience,” she says, “being surrounded by really nice people and making a lot of friends.”
If you go
If you go
What: Meeting for parents of children interested in being junior interpreters at Naper Settlement
When: 1-2:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4
Where: Naper Settlements Century Memorial Chapel, 523 S. Webster St., Naperville
Info: nsjuniors@naperville.il.us.