Volunteering and Connection
If you visit TJMHC during Friday hours, you are almost certain to see long-time docent Davya Cohen leading a tour. Davya spent 35 years as a Middle School Shop Teacher before starting her second career as a Mental Health Counselor specializing in Art Therapy. Here she shares why she volunteers at the museum and Holocaust Center and a recent 'small world' story that demonstrates how we find ourselves truly connected.
Once I retired, I was looking to do something that was fun and both beneficial to me and others. Following lunch with a friend, we stopped at the Tucson Jewish Museum to see the exhibit of wedding gowns. The docent was delightful and so enthusiastic when sharing her knowledge of the display, apparently I got hooked. I asked her a few questions about being a volunteer there and suddenly out of my mouth came the words, “Do you think the museum may be looking for additional docents?”
She asked for my contact information and told me someone would get back to me. I received a phone call later that day. I explained that I was looking to be a volunteer one day a week. That was twelve years ago and I am still volunteering one day a week. I have said numerous times, “When being a docent is no longer fun, I’m gone.” However, being a docent is still a lot of fun for me. I love sharing my knowledge, I enjoy engaging with the public, meeting new and interesting people from around the world, deepening my own understanding of my Jewish people and our shared history, and fulfilling my sense of community. As a result, I have had many unique and personal experiences that I sometimes can’t explain.
Recently during a tour, guests were listening to me but watching the family pictures change in the exhibit on immigration. Suddenly, a man blurted out, “He’s at Evergreen.” I turned and looked at the screen and there was the photo of myself and my recently deceased husband. His outburst threw me for a loop. I stumbled over my words as I responded back to him, “How do you know that?”
This gentleman explained he lives in Florida but was in Tucson with his wife visiting his widowed mother. They had come to the museum directly from visiting his father’s grave at Evergreen Cemetery. Next to his father’s grave, he noticed the installation of a beautiful new headstone. He was taken aback when he realized how odd that the man buried next to his father had the identical first name, Stanley. He also felt it very strange that their last name being Meyers and the middle name engraved on the new headstone next to his father’s grave was Maier.
The very first set of pictures on the TV screen were the photos of the family of Stanley Cohen. This guest was in shock as he just seen that name at the cemetery next to his father’s grave.
What are the chances that I would meet the family of the man buried next to my husband at the Jewish History Museum, on a tour that I was conducting, on the only day of the week that I volunteer at the museum? This was just another unique experience that keeps me volunteering as a docent at Tucson’s Jewish History Museum.