What do I do as a community garden friend?
Groundwork Milwaukee takes volunteers all growing season long (and longer) to support gardens across the city. Regular volunteers may volunteer for one afternoon or all season long, with opportunities across the network. This support is invaluable, and a great option for folks with busy schedules, or who are just starting to explore their interest in environmental work. For most of our gardens, the support that is most needed are volunteers who can commit dedicated time each week at the same location. With this need, we created our Community Garden Friends program for 2023. Rather than volunteering for different gardens across the network, garden friends will be paired with a specific garden in the network and asked to give at least four hours of their time to the garden weekly all summer long (May - September).
Garden friends will learn the inner workings of the community garden they work with, getting the satisfaction of seeing a growing season the whole way through, practicing community outreach and engagement with neighbors, and seeing what it really takes to run a community garden.
Additionally, garden friends will meet together once every two weeks to learn together in a cohort model - building soft skills in community outreach, technical skills in gardening & constructions, and touring other gardens in the network. Garden friends will be learning from the garden leaders they apprentice under, Groundwork staff teaching workshops, as well as learning from each other!
Growing Community Leaders
The community garden friend program is designed to be a crash course in what it takes to lead a community garden. Folks with passion & experience in community organizing will learn the basics of gardening, while more experienced gardeners will benefit from practicing community outreach and engagements. Community garden friends will finish the summer with the skills and experience to start their own community garden.
Beginner Gardeners Invited
Anybody can become an environmental steward! All community members, especially folks who have never gardened before, have something to teach & something to learn from fellow community members and from the earth itself. In the United States, the vast majority of public greenspace is tended to by volunteers. The only requirement to becoming a community garden friend is having passion to build community!
What happens after the program ends?
Continue working with Groundwork staff and help us create more gardens for all Milwaukee residents!
**Garden friends interested in this option will be asked to complete 6 hrs of service learning May - September rather than 4 hours.**