Planning for the 2024 Rockridge Kitchen Tour, scheduled for Sunday, October 13, is in full swing. The Kitchen Tour committee has selected eight kitchens and two ADUs to be featured on this year’s tour, and is now turning to the vital task of recruiting another great group of Kitchen Tour docents.
Docents fill a very important role during the tour: they are the people who welcome the guests at each home; answer questions about the kitchens; and make the Kitchen Tour enjoyable for attendees and homeowners alike.
Whether you’ve been a docent in the past, or are new to the Rockridge Kitchen Tour, volunteering as a docent is a fulfilling and rewarding experience. It’s also ideal for someone who wants to help the Rockridge community but can’t make a long-term commitment to neighborhood boards and associations. Many people volunteer year after year — it’s that much fun!
<–Kitchen from 2022 Tour
Docents: What’s Involved?
A week or two before the tour, all docents attend a pre-tour training session (no more than three hours) that includes visits to several of the selected houses. One of the best parts of being a docent is getting a behind-the-scenes look ahead of the tour and the opportunity to learn more about the kitchens from the owners/architects/contractors.
On your training day, you will visit three of the selected kitchens and hear directly from those homeowners, architects, and perhaps even the contractors about the unique features and skillful problem-solving approaches taken during the actual design and construction for each of them. The session will also familiarize you with the layout of your assigned home to help you guide visitors around, educate them about the house, and be able to answer any questions. On the day of the Kitchen Tour you will be given a three-hour shift, with the rest of the day to visit the other kitchens that you did not see during the pretour training.
Volunteering for the Kitchen Tour is a great way to get to know more about the neighborhood as well as first-rate kitchen design, but it’s also a chance to give back to Rockridge. In case you didn’t know, the biennial Kitchen Tour is the main fundraiser for the Rockridge Community Planning Council (RCPC). Since the first KitchenTour in 1995, proceeds have gone to the Friends of the
Rockridge Library for building the inspiring home for the College Avenue branch; to the design and building of the play structure and other amenities at Frog Park; to the Kevin Faughnan Memorial Community Grants program that supports local projects that
benefit Rockridge; and many other purposes.
Many hands make light work, and the Kitchen Tour is an enjoyable experience for both attendees and volunteers. In addition to docents, we are seeking folks interested in helping put up posters and banners, as well as volunteers to act as “runners” to troubleshoot on the day of the tour.
Want to be part of the action? Contact Kitchen Tour Chair Star Lightner; kitchentour@rockridge.org
