Volunteer

(Above) New Percy Grainger Home & Studio Tour Guides work together to bring their own interpretation to the collections

Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the core of our vision and mission. The Percy Grainger Society’s commitment to these values is unwavering, across all our work, all around the world. These values are central to our stated vision and mission and, by implication, to our volunteer program. We believe that having varied and inclusive perspectives helps generate better ideas and we seek and embrace such perspectives. Volunteers from diverse communities and encouraged to volunteer.

The Percy Grainger House is essentially a time capsule, a snapshot of life as lived in the early twentieth century. Percy Grainger, and his mother, Rose Grainger, moved in during May, 1921. It became home base for the Grainger family (Percy married Ella in 1928) for the next fifty-eight years. Many of the rooms are unchanged and reflect the taste, customs, and interests of this eclectic (some might say eccentric) family.

As the Graingers settled in through the decades, they gathered day-to-day items (sewing baskets and shoe polish kits) while collecting souvenirs during their travels (Chinese hanging bells and native American woven baskets). Each family member added dozens of self-created works of art and quirky inventions (Ella’s ceramic tiles, Percy’s designs for sheet music covers), storing items in fire-proof basement vaults or attic boxes. Many treasures remain where the Graingers placed them.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this 1890s house has served many purposes over the years for the Graingers, as well as their guests. Today, volunteers are organizing, interpreting and re-creating the Grainger story as it unfolds discovery by discovery. Each object and each room tells its own story and offers its own insights into this fascinating family.