February 2025

Jackie Pierce is our Volunteer of the Month!

Jackie Pierce in the Timeline room at the museum.

In 2021 Sue Zakes, a board member at the time, approached Jackie about volunteering at the museum. They had worked together at Fairview and at Oregon State Hospital.

Sue went to a Oregon State Hospital Retirees lunch and talked to Lorrie Walker and Jackie. They have been working as a team ever since. “I enjoy doing the overview of the museum while Lorrie takes care of the money.”  A recent guest commented that Jackie’s passion for the Unfit to be at large exhibit, which explores women’s suffrage through the experiences of women at the Oregon State Hospital from its opening in 1883 to 1920, is important to “help us remember how far we come, and help us from sliding back to into a country where women are not equal to men.”

Prior to volunteering at the museum Jackie volunteered with the Red Cross, World Beat, and Mission Street Park Conservancy Plant Sale.

Before retiring, Jackie worked at OSH as a Psychiatric Social Worker in the Forensic Program for 8 years and then in Geriatrics for 9 years. Prior to working at OSH I worked two years at Fairview the Institute  for the Developmentally Disabled. She retired in 2006.

Jackie says she enjoys volunteering at the museum “because I like meeting new people and educating the public about mental illness and the history of how they were. I also like to make sure people know just how closely we are all connected and how easy it is for someone with a quick stroke of a pen can have us sent away to a state hospital.”

Thank you Jackie for helping us spread awareness about mental health!