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Become a Vanderbilt Volunteer!

During 2017, the Vanderbilt Museum’s 135 volunteers generously donated more than 1,000 hours of their time to the Museum.

We’re always happy to talk with new people who would like to volunteer at this unique Long Island landmark – an historic waterfront estate, mansion, museum, planetarium and park.

This multi-faceted institution offers an intriguing range of interests – the history and summer home one of America’s most famous and influential families, their suspended-in-time mansion, astronomy, natural history, marine life, and artifacts from African and Asian cultures.

Volunteer gardeners beautify the Vanderbilt Estate
Volunteer gardeners beautify the Vanderbilt Estate
Vanderbilt Mansion Tour Guide
Mansion guide Ellen Mason, dressed as a suffragette, in honor of Mr. Vanderbilt’s mother, Alva, a prominent figure in the fight for women’s right to vote

Volunteers can help with many aspects of the Museum:

  • Curatorial work
  • Buildings and grounds
  • Mansion guides and greeters
  • Interns
  • Education programs
  • Specialized projects

To inquire about opportunities, please contact Carol Sperandeo:
631-854-5568, or carol@vanderbiltmuseum.org

All potential volunteers are subject to a criminal background check.

Vanderbilt marine museum, The Hall of Fishes
Interns Steven Clampitt and Amanda Jensen conserve specimens in the Vanderbilt marine museum, The Hall of Fishes

In January 2018, the Times Beacon Record newspapers (seven weeklies covering Long Island North Shore towns and villages from Cold Spring Harbor east to Wading River) honored local volunteers, an annual tradition. The papers published an article on January 3, 2018, about the Vanderbilt volunteers.

Among those noted were Gloria Hall and her fellow gardeners, Ellen Mason, Rick Ellinson, Mary McKell, Dale Spencer, Marianne Weeks, Gretchen Oldrin-Mones, Agnes Ward, Bill Caputi and Sheldon Cooper.