Gilroy Garden’s Docents:
Feeding a Lifelong Love of Learning
A
fter volunteering as a docent at
Gilroy Gardens for nearly 10 years,
Sue Johnston of Morgan Hill
explained, “There’s so much to discover
there and always more to learn. I wish I
could live to 100.”
Bob Nunes, a seven-year docent and
retiree from IBM after 36 years said, “I
didn’t know about anything in this park
until I learned about it from other people
here. It’s like being a little kid here.”
Michael Bonfante began the docent
program after seeing similar concepts while
touring other theme parks long before he
built his own, said Eva Trenbreth, now
Human Relations Operations Manager
at Gilroy Gardens. Previously, Trenbreth
worked in administration for Bonfante at
Nob Hill. She followed him 16 years ago to
the planning stages of what was originally
called Bonfante Gardens, before the City
purchased the park.
“Pretty soon, docents were in the park
to answer questions,” Trenbreth explains.
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“Little by little the program blossomed, and
they wanted to do so much more to give
back to community. They all wanted to
teach and share their knowledge.”
She values their dedication. “They take
it very seriously and it’s their passion,”
Trenbreth said. “We started out with just
a handful of docents, and have grown to
about 150 active ones.”
Docent Duties
As head of the docent program, Trenbreth
said she and her staff couldn’t complete an
exhaustive list of all the duties docents have
undertaken. While most docents are retired
people with more free time, some are high
school students fulfilling community service
hours, and the more experienced docents
train and supervise the newer docents.
They also clean and maintain park gardens,
decorate for Christmas, take the overnight
Scout campers on hikes, assist with big HR
projects, give tours, hand out maps, and
run the stations on Natural Science days
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
JULY / AUGUST 2016
when school children come to the park on
field trips.
“One docent has too many allergies to
continue coming to the park,” Trenbreth
said. “But she feels such a strong commit-
ment to the program, so she sends birthday
and get well cards to other docents.”
Nunes, a San Martin resident, still brings
his youngest grandchild to the park when
he’s not busy working as a dedicated docent
in numerous areas of the park.
On Mondays, Nunes takes in the
recycling for the docents’ petty cash
account. The docent recycling committee
uses it to buy lunches for the docents, gifts,
or other volunteer expenses. Tuesdays and
Wednesdays Nunes does paperwork in
his role as docent panel treasurer. Nunes
works on the rose crew most Thursdays.
But he also instructs the children in the
composting and recycling sections for
Natural Science days on Thursday and
Friday mornings in May and October.
From time to time, Nunes has worked
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Written By Amy McElroy