Do you do volunteer work?

I would like to make a commitment to a volunteer project this year. Do any of you have a regular project? How did you choose an organization?

Does anyone do garden-related volunteer work? That seems to be hard to find, and that's a shame.

All comments and suggestions are welcomed.

I help out at the local food pantry/thrift store. I found them when I had too many apples a few years ago.
You can search out local Garden Clubs or civic organizations for horticultural volunteer work. In my city, we can adopt a little 'green space' in parks or at intersections.
Andy P

I volunteer at a county park, but I also live here, and receive free rent & utilities. You might find it rewarding to help cancer patients with their gardening while they are going through chemo. Or you could contact hospice, or senior centers to see if any elderly need help.


Edited because I forgot to finish my sentence..LOL

This message was edited Jan 11, 2007 10:28 AM

check with your local church. they always need people to drive elderly patiets to doctor visits or something like that. the church also runs a home for unwed mothers and they are always looking for people to spend some time with the young girls.

I delivered Meals-on-Wheels for about a year. It was very easy and the people were always so sweet and happy to see me. The only bad thing was that you are on a time schedule, because you are delivering food, and can't stay and keep them company and you can't get into a long conversation. (which is hard to avoid sometimes! lol) I was able to go visit a lady that was 103 for quite a while on other days tho.

I am a 4-H leader, a cub scout leader I am PTA president and I teach ccd at my church. All of these things are recent to me all started within the past three years. I love it. You never know all that goes on behind the scenes until you are behind the scenes.
The 4-H and Cub Scout thing I think I will continue after my children are grown. Very rewarding.
One of the things I do with my ccd group is I have tthem do at least ONE community service thing each year. Once we planted bulbs in a vacant lot, another time we raised money for a local town that was all but ruined by a mudslide and this year we are putting out the word through our church bulletin to offer elderly folks with outside yard help.
~dayna

I do work with the local Red Cross, with being on the coast it always seems to come in handy.

Dwerland: I've lived in California all my life but never heard of Nipomo...where is that ?

I’m a volunteer SCUBA Diver at an Aquarium. Do you like babies? Some Hospitals need people to hold babies that are in the NICU.

Betterbloom,
We are a little speck of a town. We were not evenon the map until about five six years ago. We are on the Central Coast. Do you know where San Luis Obispo is? I am about 25 minutes south of San Luis, how about Santa Barbara, I am about an hours drive ( the way I drive 1 1/2 hours for most people) north of Santa Barbara.
I too am a california native, although I am not well traveled, where is Blythe?
Dayna

Oh, I'd love to go sit and hold babies in the hospital! I don't know if I could refrain from crying the entire time tho.

Holding babies can be the greatest thing in the world......until you find out they didn't make it. If you can handle that, contact your local children's hospital, medical teaching hospital or private hospital. We have a very large hospital - Arkansas Children's Hospital - and they have many volunteers. All hospitals need volunteers for different reasons.

Andi, do you have any particular interests? Does your newspaper run a list of voluteer opportunities in your community? I can think of about a jillion places to volunteer - the hard part is choosing one! Pet rescue or Humane Society, hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, public schools, libraries, voter registration and voting commission, food pantries, homeless shelters, parks department, law enforcement, local zoo, Habitat for Humanity, Heifer Project International......see what I mean???? LOL!

Good luck finding the right opportunity. Volunteering can be very rewarding and is so needed.

Hello Everybody, I have a very good story to tell.
I am a member of the Arlington Organic Gardening Club and at one of the meetings they asked for a volunteer to help with the children's garden at Fielder House Museum, which is the home of some of the earliest Arlington residents, and is now being cared for by the Arlington Historical Society.
I offered to help on Mondays last Fall. Well, when I got there I was dismayed. The Johnson grass was about three feet tall and the Bermuda covered the entire area.

I went to work digging out the grasses and in the process a friend from Master Naturalists group joined me in the project, so now there are two of us working there.
We took out the grass, added mulch and planted some plants from my house. They are letting us have for beds
to work with.

This is our plan, 1bed of all native plants for butterflies.
1 long narrow bed along the fence 2 feet wide by 50 feet long, for native and naturalized plants for butterflies and hummers.
1 bed 10 by3 feet for all Endemic shrubs.
1 bed the same size for all Native shrubs.
2 trellises about 20 feet each for native vines.
The last 2 beds are close to the road where people can see them easily.
All these beds will be used as demonstration sites.

I also volunteer at the Veterans Park Wildscape 2days a week .
The Native Plant Society of Texas
The North Central Texas Master Naturalists
Planted and maintain 3 flower beds at my church.
Of course, I have no children at this time so I have more free time, I couldn't have done all this a few years ago.
Josephine.

Good for you Josephine! I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'm sure that it will turn out beautiful! I would love to do something that involved my love of gardening and butterflies too. But, I do have a young one that still needs much of my time so I'm limited now but it's a good time for me to start getting some ideas. :)

I didn't have anything in particular in mind, but I hoped for something related to gardening. Thanks for the interesting suggestions.

You might contact some soup kitchens...I've worked one and I'd have been thrilled to have a kitchen garden, even if it needed to be in containers.

Also, women's shelter always have kids...and those kids need as much love and care and HOPE as they can get. Giving them seeds and pots and showing them how to take care of it, something of their VERY OWN, would be a huge thing.

luna baby,
That is a great idea. I hadn't thought of that beofre. I would be willing to bet that it would be very theraputic for them, to be able to nurture something, see it grow, and then produce something lovely, flower or vegetable. You never know, be doing something like this, one might encourage a love of gardening that will be a forever joy.
~Dayna

Dwerland: Blythe is on the border of Arizona. Very small, if you blink you will miss it. My ex-brother in law lives in Santa Barbara, so I know where that is. I don't travel much either. Lived in Reno for about 3 months, and Bullhead City for a couple, other than that I lived in So Cal the rest of the time. Blythe is a bit small for me, but I'm sure I could find something good to say about if thought long enough. (LOL) At least you live in a nice green area, Blythe is all desert.

I meant to add, if you can't run to little pots, the clear plastic egg cartons are good too, because then they act as little terrariums. And it teaches a little science and recycling.

Our large hospital has flower beds outside the Rehab section and they need volunteers that can help the patients work in the raised beds. You can get as involved as you want to with something like that. They even have a small greenhouse. You can make small potted plants for rest home patients. Many of them don't have anyone to visit them and would love something pretty to look at. Put pretty paper or a bow around the pot and you are good to go!

I have been limited this last year in my volunteer activities due to multiple back surgeries, so I have been knitting even more little booties for the Crisis Pregnancy Center. I also sometimes knit hats for the NICU babies. I have not been able to be a baby rocker recently, but there are so many other ways to help. The ideas above are really good ones. I know you will find things you can do, and it's so nice to have people like you who want to help.

Diane

I work Fridays as a teachers aid in my kid's school. I work with them in the garden, and we have 2 big planter boxes to play with.
It's so rewarding, and I get to know people around me, it's a public school.

Christie

I work with the prison ministry, 'Kairos' and grow flowers for the participants in Kairos' Outside which is a weekend retreat for women who have loved ones in prison. I am currently waiting for the flowers to bloom for the March 8 walk...........need 1200 flowers and i believe i will have most and only have to buy a few.
The most fun volunteer gardening I ever had was volunteering in an elementary school where my daughter was teaching in the second grade. The school spent the money to put in raised beds ....lots of them...then I got to work 3 times a week with the children growing flowers and vegetables. They got to take everything home that they grew....big project but soooo much fun.
The most rewarding volunteer job was when I chose the poorest school close enough to my house and volunteered to work two days a week. They gave me to a teacher who had 8 children ranging in age from 8-12 who could not work on grade level but didn't qualify for special education. There wasn't much we didn't get to do from making quilts, gardening, learning to take up hems on jeans, etc. It did costs me money but was worth every penny i did spend. They even learned to basic cook, etc. When I was asked to go to Austin to receive a state award from George Bush (I am Not a republican) I began to realize just how much the kids had all learned.
I vote if you are young enough to go for it, just choose the poorest school you can find to make the biggest difference in childrens' lives.

I agree with bettygail. I volunteer 2 days/week as an teacher's aide in a self contained special ed class. The kids are the greatest reward.

bsharf, special ed kids are the best and most fun, aren't they!!!! In 89 and 90 I worked in a community of residential and day school which had a giant (it exists today and has quadrupled in size) horticulture department. I still remember each and every adult who chose to work in the greenhouses.....truly God's children!!!

Andi, Are you interested in becoming a Master Gardener? MG's do garden related volunteer work in many different settings. Also, you are so close to River Farm, home of the American Horticultural Society. There are about a gazillion volunteer opportunities there.

ardesia-
What's required to become a MG? Have you done it before? I will look into it.

There are loads of opportunities to volunteer here in the San Francisco Bay area. I'm the garden co-ordinator for the curriculum garden at my son's elementary school. For me this entails organising volunteers to help each class with their gardening projects, arranging compost collections, providing ideas and supplies for the projects and keeping the garden looking good through the year. It's a fantastic opportunity that I stumbled across and I love it. I average about 2-3 hours per week but of course it's less in Winter and more in Spring. Other places that accept volunteers here are the botanical gardens, the SF Arboretum, there are a couple of organisations that are involved in restoring native plants in various areas.... the list goes on. I'm sure there will be something similar in your neck of the woods. Good luck.

Andi, to become a MG you must complete a course and commit to so many volunteer hours to become certified. The programs are different in different areas and I am not sure how VA works theirs. Here in SC it is administered/coordinated by the Clemson Extension Service and we have 40 hours of classes and 40 hours of required volunteer hours. The American Hort. Society has MG's doing volunteer work at River Farm so if you call there they can tell you about available opportunities and MG training. You may not have to be a MG to participate so give them a call, their # is 703 768 8700 or just visit their web site. www.ahs.org. I would volunteer there in a minute if I didn't live 700 miles away, LOL.

I have been a MG since the mid 80's in 3 different areas/states; and I can't say enough good things about the program. However, it is hard to compare MG programs; some are good and others, are not. I have been fortunate to be part of some excellent programs (and others that struggled). The best part is the wonderful gardening buddies you make. Being able to work alongside like minded persons is always rewarding and the opportunites to learn are ongoing.

Thanks. I will contact them and request some information on those opportunities.

I took the Master Gardners' program in Roswell, NM back in the early early 80's...........what a waste of time.........i didn't care one thing about growing apple trees and that is what we learned............I hear that some are good as you said, but this was a time consuming nothing thing I did.

Bettygail, you are correct, I have taken the course in 2 different states and there is a HUGE difference in the programs. I can't even imagine a whole program devoted to one subject. Most groups use a similar manual and there is certainly one section devoted to growing fruits; around here this section usually takes up about 2 hours of the total 40 hours of class time. It is an important part of the whole course as, when you are volunteering, you will certainly get questions about fruits regardless if you have an interest in them or not.

Personally, I hate answering questions about grass (lawn grasses) because I have no interest in them and I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling people grass is wasteful but.........

Last year we took a MG class to a USDA lab and most were frustrated because they could not see the value in it; all anyone wants to learn about is perennials and shrubbery. It was amazing to watch as they were able to extrapolate the information about things like vegetable breeding and think about how this works in horticulture. More varigated plants anyone?????

This is my 3rd year as a MG in Florida. Its a good program here, primarily geared towards home landscaping. We have such a wide variety of activities. Some people maintain public gardens, others do educational programs, I do most of my activities with a school.