by Ellen C. Chahey

In a typical summer, about 32,000 people visit the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History on Route 6A in Brewster. Then another contingent comes through in September to May. And every one of them will somehow be helped by at least one volunteer.

Who coordinates those volunteers? Jean Seymour. Depending upon the season, somewhere between 180 and 200 volunteer docents, field guides, gift shop and admissions clerks and other workers welcome children and adults to the museum and make sure they understand exhibits such as the butterfly house, the aquarium and interactive displays such as the kid-sized, climbable “Japanese bullet train,” whose aerodynamic snout mimics the beak of a bird, or to lead them along the museum’s trails.

It’s Seymour’s job, as volunteer coordinator, to synchronize all those schedules and see that new people are trained. For some of the field guides and docents, training takes weeks. She also supervises a number of unpaid interns from area high schools.

Seymour headed for her type of work early. Having grown up in Wellesley, she went to Vermont College, where she majored in human services. When she arrived on Cape in 1985, Seymour embarked on a career in real estate that lasted 36 years.

“But then I wanted to do something else,” she recalled. So when the museum job opened up about three years ago, Seymour stepped in as one of the 15 to 20 paid staff.

“I’ve always loved anything out in nature. I was always outside,” she said of her childhood, as she explained that in her family “you either had to be sick or it had to be raining” to stay indoors. To this day, she said, she loves to garden at her West Yarmouth home (“I do flowers. My husband does vegetables.”) For even more exercise, she enjoys walks — during which she picks up trash.

And Seymour even does her own volunteer work outdoors, at the Taylor-Bray Farm in Yarmouthport. There, she feeds chickens, goats, sheep, a donkey and a Highland cow. She goes there often enough that “the sheep know my car,” she says, as she speaks about her love for “the animal-human connection.”

She also has served as a nursing-home ombudsman, a role in which she could use her problem-solving skills to resolve issues between residents, staff and the facilities. She volunteered in that role for about three years. “It’s perfect for someone who wants to give back,” she said, “and the training helped me a lot” when her own mother needed skilled nursing care.

She has also volunteered with Meals on Wheels, with the New England Society for Abandoned Animals and with the MSPCA as a dog walker.

But Seymour would much rather talk about the museum’s volunteers than about her own life.

“I always need [more volunteers],” she said. Although her “dream” volunteer can come to the museum weekly, many can’t, and she said that she tells them, “What you can give me, I can accommodate.”

Most museum volunteers come, Seymour said, “with a lot of passion” for nature, the environment, birds or some other aspect of natural history. Many are retired. “I call them a volunteer community of diverse backgrounds and unique skills” who subscribe to the museum’s mission “to inspire appreciation, understanding, and stewardship of our natural environment and wildlife discovery.” she said.

One unusual source of volunteering comes from the Cape’s fishing community. “Fishermen call about stuff they’ve found” to offer to the aquarium, Seymour said as she pointed to an albino snapping turtle swimming in its tank.

Founded in 1954, the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History occupies 17,000 square feet of indoor space and 80 acres of land that abut 320 acres of town property.

To reach Jean Seymour with questions about volunteering at the museum, contact her at jseymour@ccmnh.org, or call her at 508-896-3867, extension 121.

Every year in May, the museum volunteers get together for a picnic before the busy season begins. “They’re a great group,” the coordinator said. “I can’t say enough about them.”

The volunteers “always come through for me,” Seymour said as she continued her praise, and added in a handwritten note, “They are invaluable to the museum. Our volunteers are superstars to me.”

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