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We have exciting volunteer opportunities!
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With the generous support of people like you, we can continue providing the public with the opportunity to learn about the historical and current events of the Salton Sea. We are always looking for items from the old days of the Salton Sea. If you would like information on donating items, please Contact Us.

Your financial support helps us achieve our mission, provides for basic operating costs, enables us to acquire archival and museum collections and provide educational projects for our youth. Private contributions in any amount are welcome and very much needed. There are many ways to donate to our museum and help insure our success.. The simplest way is to become a member. We offer many levels of membership, both Annual and Life. You can also make a direct financial contribution. By investing in the Salton Sea History Museum, you will join other donors who have chosen to be a part of creating and maintaining an exciting home for the history of our area. All cash donations are tax-deductible.

You can also support us in any of the following ways:

Donate to Our Collections

The Salton Sea History Museum staff is eager to speak with you about a possible donation of artifacts, books/magazines, old photographs, videos and archival materials.

In-Kind Donations

In-kind donations are those donations that are made in goods and services rather than money. Some of the types of in-kind donations might include accounting, duplication/photo services, office supplies and museum volunteers. If you have a skill or can donate goods, we can probably use it!

Donate an Artifact

This type of donation might include items related to the early days of the North Shore Beach & Yacht Club, farming, native American history, railroad related items, Salton Sea recreation such as boating, skiing, resorts and fishing, date industry, artists and their paintings, World War II items including Patton's desert training and the Salton Sea Naval Base, the duck clubs and hunting and the early rural life of our residents.

The Museum is currently seeking objects in the following categories for its permanent collections:

Items related to Albert Frey, the North Shore Beach & Yacht Club (Ray Ryan & Trav Rogers, Commodore Olesen etc.), North Shore News, desert landscape paintings by John Hilton, Jimmy Swinnerton, Clyde Forsythe, Bill Bender and others, Palm Island Estates (Ed Ainsworth-Desert Barnacle & Palm Islander), Desert Kitchen, Date Palm Beach/Desert Beach (Gus & Iva Eilers, Roy Hunter), Dos Palmas (Frank Coffee, Trudi Voss Tenderich, Ray Morgan), Helen Burns (Salton Seafarer) and anything associated with her life and promotion of the sea, the Bradshaw Trail and its stage stations especially the Dos Palmas Station, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. I guess I should have said ANYTHING to do with historic sites (recorded or not), and the history of the lower Coachella Valley from Thermal down to the southern end of the Salton Sea.

Fine and folk art.
This includes paintings, sketches, prints and sculptures by the artists who frequented the area.

To inquire about making a donation to collections, please contact:

Museum Director, Jennie Kelly