Angie Ginn: A Passion for Volunteering

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<p>For the last 13 years, Angie Ginn has dedicated her weekends to volunteering on a floating city in San Diego Bay.</p>
<p>Ginn is the docent events coordinator for one of America’s longest serving aircraft carriers, the USS Midway Museum. She is responsible for coordinating the educated tour guides known as docents for evening events aboard the ship.</p>
<p>“I know this ship better than anybody,” she said with a proud smile.</p>
<p>Ginn is the first woman and the first Latina to sit on the council committee for docents and the first to achieve 25,000 volunteering hours on the ship. Although, Ginn brushes this fact off because she has been volunteering on the ship longer than most, her work and dedication does not go unnoticed.</p>
<p><a href="/sites/default/files/2017/10/IMG_4354-e1508461485861.jpg"><img loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-42936 alignright" src="http://laprensa-sandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/IMG_4354-e15084…; alt="" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/IMG_435… 225w, https://dev-laprensa.pantheonsite.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/IMG_435… 768w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px"></a></p>
<p>She began volunteering for the USS Midway Museum in 2004 before it was actually opened to the public. And in the last 13 years, she has volunteered as a docent, exhibit installer, and special events and education organizer.</p>
<p>“When I am a volunteer I do anything, I work with the ship restoration, I work with the aircraft restoration, I work with exhibits and I work with the overnights (children sleepover education tours),” Ginn said.</p>
<p>Her passion for volunteering has been one of her greatest motivators and it is one that she discovered after volunteering with the American Red Cross during fires in San Diego County.</p>
<p>“It was fulfilling,” Ginn said. “I felt that I contributed to my community in some way.”</p>
<p>Originally from Lima, Peru, Ginn arrived to the United States with her husband who was an aviator in the Navy. Two weeks after their arrival, her husband was sent to Vietnam, so she dedicated her time to learning to speak English and went to college.</p>
<p>Because she worked during the day, she attended community college at night and earned a degree in business from National University. For 15 years, she ran her own electronics business, which focused in the manufacturing operations program in Mexico.</p>
<p>“You have to have a passion for whatever you do,” Ginn said. “When I decided to run my own business, it was a passion that motivated me to do that because I didn’t know where the money was going to come to pay at the beginning, it’s very tough.”</p>
<p>Despite being busy with school her career, Ginn dedicated her spare time to volunteer work. She used her electronics and bilingual skills to tutor construction workers and others in similar fields who had been injured and needed to train for new careers.</p>
<p>While managing her business and taking care of her two children, Ginn began to volunteer her Saturdays and Sundays at the museum. After retiring in 2007, she began to volunteer almost every day.</p>
<p>“I’m training the younger folks here to do what I do that way they can take over for me when I’m gone someday”, Ginn said. “But while I’m still here, I am strong and I will continue volunteering on the ship.”</p>
<p>She also currently helps with the exhibit installations because of her background in electronics and if she is needed, she volunteers in the overnight education program.</p>
<p>“Bottom line is if you have a passion, that’s your motivation that’s your engine and it doesn’t need gasoline,” she said.</p>