San Mateo County Historical Association

Mission: To inspire wonder and discovery of the cultural and natural history of San Mateo County.

Through hands-on experiences, students are much more likely to learn, appreciate, and integrate historical information into their current lives.

The San Mateo County Historical Association started in 1935. Dr. Frank Stanger, a history instructor at San Mateo Junior College (today's College of San Mateo), developed a mission for SMCHA. His goals were preserving the county's historical sites, developing an archives for the county's history and creating a museum dedicated to preserving reminders of the county's past. The original goals of the Historical Association have expanded to include providing meaningful learning experiences for the county’s residents and guests with special attention devoted to children’s programs. We also offer an exciting calendar of public programs including workshops, lectures and family days.

Annual Programs:

July 4th: An Old Fashioned Fourth
August: Victorian Days
November: Day of the Dead
December: Hometown Holidays

Other events TBD

Volunteer Role Description: Craft Volunteer

During the year we have various "family craft days" - where we have crafts for children in our rotunda area based on a certain theme (for example: Maritime Day, Hometown Holidays, Victorian Days). We have anywhere from 6-8 crafts that we offer per event. Usually we have one table per craft which is manned by one or two volunteers. These crafts are very easy and geared towards Elementary School children. Volunteers interact with, and explain the craft to, the children and help them if need be.

You are not required to volunteer for every event we have, nor do we ask that you work the entire day (you are certainly welcome to if you would like). We only require that you commit to one shift per event (which is roughly 2-3.5 hours). Also, if you sign up for a shift/event, we ask that you keep your commitment or notify us in advance if you are not able to make it. We rely on our volunteers to staff these tables, and it impacts us negatively when people sign up and do not show or cancel last minute.

If you need volunteer hours for school, we are able to sign any paperwork required.

To be added to our volunteer email list, please email education@historysmc.org