Volunteer
Interested in volunteering? Here are some of the ways you can pitch in.
Please email Lisa Millette at lisa@growingplaces.org or 978.598.3723, x802 if you’re interested in any of the volunteer opportunities listed below or fill out the Volunteer Application.
Also, please check out our Events Calendar for more volunteer opportunities.
Garden Installation Crew: each garden requires a crew to install the frame, fill them with soil, and prep them for the gardeners use. Each build is approximately three hours (the record is 50 minutes) and for three raised beds, it takes about four (4) volunteers. This is a great service experience for schools, scouts, or families and friends just looking to have a good time working in the outdoors.
Garden Mentors
Garden Mentors serve every gardener – from the experienced do-it-yourselfer to the self-proclaimed black thumbs. Mentors ensure that our gardens succeed given the skills, needs, and interests of the individual and family gardeners. Minimum commitment of 1 year is required and Mentors can expect to spend between 4-8 hrs/family/year with most of the time served between May through October.
Team Leaders
Team Leaders ensure that all phases of installing a garden are completed for a site. He or she serves as the go-to person for a scheduled implementation and handles all the details associated with getting the gardener what they need on a particular day. Team Leaders with pick-up trucks are needed, but not required. Time Commitment: 3 hours per garden installation.
Drivers
Drivers ensure that the gardeners have all the tools they need for their gardens. There are three times Growing Places needs the assistance of drivers:
April-June: delivering wooden raised bed frames. For with a spare hour or two are welcome to contact Lisa to coordinate a time to deliver frames. Use of your own pick-up truck would be appreciated.
May and June: Seeding delivery. Once mid-May and the first week of June, we distribute seedlings to our 2nd year gardeners. You can delivery as many or as few as you wish at a time convienent to you!
October: Compost delivery. Each gardener receives one 35 lb bag of manure/humus mix per raised bed. We need drivers to help deliver these bags. Again, you can take as few or as many as you want and deliver in your spare time.
Time Commitment: based on your availability.
Newsletter Contributor
Do you have exceptional writing skills and a few hours to spare each month? If so, we need help developing and sending our newsletters out to our gardeners, volunteers, and donors.
Board Members
Growing Places is looking for talented and enthusiastic people to join our Board of Trustees. In addition to traditional board skills such as finance, fund-raising, legal, communications and media, Growing Places is looking for people with a social enterprise or agricultural background, or people with connections to our client population and/or organizations that serve them. Minimum commitment of three years required.
For the following volunteer opportunities, please contact our nutrition partner, Cooking Matters.
Jessica Maillet, Central and Western MA Manager, JMaillet@strength.org
Chef Instructors
Chef Instructors are needed to deliver our Nutrition Education & Cooking Classes. The role of the chef instructor is to engage the class by coaching participants as they prepare the class meal… and of course enjoying the finished dish with everyone in the end! Classes are provided to adults, children, and adults with children.
Nutrition Educator
The Nutrition Educator and Chef Instructor work hand-in-hand, echoing the message of healthy eating and living a healthy lifestyle in our. Nutrition Educators should teach in a style of facilitated dialogue rather than lecture to engage their audience. Must be a Registered Dietitian, trained nutritionist, intern or nutrition student.
Nutrition Class Assistant
The class assistant will help in our Nutrition Education Classes and will be responsible for organizing class materials for chef and nutrition educator, assisting where needed, managing classroom, and alerting Growing Places when supplies are running low. This position is open to anyone interested in working with communities and/or interested in nutrition and food.