Manzanar National Historic Site - Volunteer Program Highlights (U.S. National Park Service)

Photo by Archie Miyatake

Manzanar's model makers as they embark on their project. In all, they donated 1,482 hours.

Volunteer Program Highlight 2004

One of the highlights for visitors of all ages to the new Manzanar National Historic Site Interpretive Center is a 10’ x 9’ model of Manzanar War Relocation Center crafted and donated by a generous group of former Manzanar internees. After hearing that the NPS lacked sufficient funding to include a model in the new exhibit, the Manzanar High School Reunion Committee approached the National Park Service with an offer to make one. In all, thirteen graduates from the classes of 1943-45 worked on the project. The reunion committee paid for materials and the group devoted 1,482 hours. .

Photo by Archie Miyatake

Model makers create "grass" in the camp administrative area.

What started out a small project turned out to be a media hit. TV and newspapers in Southern California and Japan picked up the story. Words cannot express our gratitude for this group of volunteers whose work supplements the visitor experience at Manzanar National Historic Site in a powerful way. After looking at the model, visitors are consistently astonished by the magnitude of the camp, the sheer number of buildings and the number of people they represent.This model is a very important part of the exhibits for two reasons: 1) its accurate depiction of what was here 2) it was a gift from a special group of former internees.

NPS Photo

Earth Systems Science, Incorporated, volunteer youth group.

Volunteer Program Highlight 2005

The maintenance division here at Manzanar National Historic Site has been proactively working with teenagers from Earth Systems Science, Incorporated (ESSI). ESSI is a National Wildlife Habitat Stewards volunteer group that comes from Los Angeles County. Our maintenance staff takes these teenagers out into the site to teach them about the importance of protecting and cleaning up historic structures. Each time they visit Manzanar they volunteer around 400 hours, while cleaning up historic ponds and gardens as well as clearing away weeds from historic structures. They also explore the diverse ecosystem of Manzanar. They see and identify several species of lizards, rabbits, plants, birds and much more. The ESSI teens offer our visitors the opportunity to see the remnants of the internment camp. The work that these teenagers do is so vital to telling the story of Manzanar. We appreciate the gift of time that these teenagers from Los Angeles County offer to Manzanar. We also appreciate the time of their teacher Mr. Lee and his staff.

Artist outside painting by the Manzanar entrance.

NPS Photo.

Melissa and Jamie Poulsen paint near the entrance to Manzanar NHS.

Volunteer Program Highlight 2006

Manzanar National Historic Site initiated our first Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program in 2006. Our first Artists-in-Residence were Melissa and Jamie Poulsen, a mother and daughter team. The Poulsens volunteered over 180 hours, sharing their artistic skills with Manzanar and its visitors. Melissa and Jamie created numerous oil paintings and wrote poetry. The two artists explored the site in depth and spent time interacting with visitors in the field.

In addition to painting and writing, the Poulsens volunteered for several other projects on site. The pair contributed time to photocopying documents, assembling newspapers for our popular teacher packets, and organizing the park’s archival files.

The volunteer commitment of the Poulsens will continue in 2007 as they prepare a show of their work at Manzanar in the spring. Melissa and Jamie plan to spend time on site again to interpret their artwork and work with children.

The Poulsens not only shared their artistic skills with Manzanar, they also shared family artifacts and documents from Heart Mountain and Tule Lake War Relocation Centers. These documents are now a part of Manzanar archives, and we thank the Poulsens for their generous donations.

Manzanar is responsible for telling the stories of Japanese American internment and we strongly encourage and welcome the help of others in achieving this goal. The first AIR program at Manzanar was a grand success, which we plan to continue in the future.

While we are extremely grateful for the contributions of all of our volunteers, it is particularly meaningful to have former internees and their families, including the Poulsens, assist us in preserving and sharing the stories of Manzanar.

Volunteer Program Highlight 2003

In the spring of 2003, a dozen volunteers were recruited to create a digital version of the War Relocation Authority's Manzanar Roster. The project was labor intensive, requiring volunteers to decipher nearly 300,000 entries from a poor-quality reduced-sized photocopy of the roster. The data was entered into a spreadsheet program. Once data entry was complete, volunteers assisted in proofreading the spreadsheet and creating a list of names from the spreadsheet for interpretive exhibits. Currently, a volunteer is creating a searchable database of the information to be used by park staff and researchers. A test version of the database will soon be available to visitors in the interpretive center