Traveling Trunk Program

Why

A key part of our mission as a historical museum is to share history with our community. In addition to exhibit displays inside our museum space at the Quinlan Community Center, we bring history directly to you with our Traveling Trunk program!

What

The "Traveling Trunk" contains many turn-of-the-century artifacts including household tools and gadgets, toys, clothing items and accessories, and pictures. The program has been designed to meet the goals and objectives of the California Elementary and Secondary Social Studies Frameworks and Common Core State Standards. It is inquiry-based and helps develop skills in close observation, evidential reasoning, and critical thinking. Docents trained to tell stories, demonstrate artifacts, and engage audiences bring the Trunk to you in a 30-60 minute presentation.

When

On average, the Traveling Trunk is presented 2-3 times a month.

Who

Our current team of Traveling Trunk docents includes:

• Sonja Cook, Traveling Trunk Coordinator — Sonja coordinates presentations with local schools, senior centers, and other groups.
• Gail Fretwell-Hugger — Gail works with Sonja to present to local schools, senior centers, and other groups.

How to Help

1. The Traveling Trunk program relies on volunteer docents! Join us as a docent and open up that bygone era to a new generation or awaken memories for those whose parents and grandparents lived through those times! If you are interested, please reach out to Sonja Cook (trunk@cupertinomuseum.org).
2. The Traveling Trunk consists of select items from our collection, which need to be stored and transported with care for each presentation. Donate to help us fund the maintenance of our collection and the resources necessary for the Trunk to Travel safely and reliably!
   • The Trunk travels in a set of suitcases in a rolling cart. Trunk docents manage the upkeep of these cases and any internal archival-grade packing materials.
   • Volunteer Docents take time out of their days and use their personal vehicles to transport the Trunk.
   • We want to be able to train more volunteer/intern docents to keep this program going!
   

   Donation:

   Donate Online with Credit Card through Square
3. This project cannot stand alone by itself. It needs other CHSM projects to move forward so that we have well-preserved items to display. Support for the following additional projects would strongly help us keep presenting the Trunk to our community:
   • The Collections Management Program which digitizes and organizes all the archives so we can conduct research within our collection and efficiently identify items to put on display.