Volunteer Spotlight: A Special Birthday at the Hall

Lawrence Hall of Science volunteers are some of our strongest and most important advocates. They generously donate their time to make our projects and programs a success, and they encourage others in their communities to do the same. One of our volunteers took it a step further when she decided to celebrate her birthday by inviting her friends and family for a day of service at the Hall.

“I wanted to add a component where we could use our get-together for something positive and more meaningful than recognizing the fact that I’m getting older,” says Rica Landreneau. She is a UC Berkeley alum with a degree in applied mathematics, currently working as a video game producer. Rica and her husband, Eric, were joined at the Hall by family and friends to celebrate her birthday by assembling Sunprint Kits.

Rica and Eric started volunteering at the Hall in fall 2015. “For years I’ve been doing one-off volunteer opportunities with an organization called One Brick,” Rica recalls. “I saw an opportunity listed with One Brick to assemble Sunprint Kits. I hadn’t been to the Hall since I was a kid, and since Eric hadn’t been to the Hall before and is a huge science nerd, I thought it would be something he’d like. At that session we learned about the regular volunteer opportunities, so we signed up for orientation.”

Since October, Rica and Eric have been reliable regular volunteers at the Hall. Rica’s favorite part of being a Hall volunteer is getting to interact with kids and see them get excited about learning science.

“Ingenuity Lab is one of my favorite jobs. It’s fun to see the kids get creative in building their products (and sometimes parents get excited and build their own, too!),” says Rica.

For Rica, volunteering is about making a difference, both for kids and for herself. “I’ve actually learned science in the last 10 months of volunteering here, and what’s great about learning it now is that I understand its relevance to everyday life more so than I did when I was younger. You don’t have to be a science person to be able to make a difference.”

For more information on our volunteer opportunities, go to our Volunteer page.