Description
Start Date-End Date: 05/21/2015-05/21/2015
Land Manager Office: Grow Local Colorado
Land Manager Contact: Barbara Masoner
Funding Partner:
Programmatic Partner:
Summary: NOTE: Registration for this opportunity is FULL. If you register, you will be placed on the wait list. As space becomes available, we will move individuals off the wait list.
Description: ABOUT THE STEWARDSHIP SITE
The Colorado Governor's Mansion, located in the heart of Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood, is a member of the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Originally built as a private residence in 1908, it was given to the State of Colorado as an executive residence in 1959. In 2011, Governor Hickenlooper donated the plants that were to become the First Family's Giving Garden, planted by Volunteers Outdoor Colorado in conjunction with Grow Local Colorado.
ABOUT THE VOLUNTEER PROJECT
This project is one of several in which we will be partnering with Grow Local Colorado to plant vegetable gardens whose purpose is to demonstrate the beauty of edible gardens, engage community participation, and inspire Denver residents to grow their own vegetable gardens. In addition, allproduce grown in this garden is then generously donated to The Gathering Place, a local women's shelter.
Volunteer work will be fun, easy, and child-friendly. Tasks will involve preparing the garden beds, weeding, working the soil, and planting vegetable seeds and seedlings.
Free dinner will be provided.
PARTNERS
Grow Local Colorado
Latitude/Longitude: 39.728752, -104.98192
Additional Information:
Camping Available: No
Physical Difficulty: Easy
High Altitude Project: No
Desired Number of Volunteers: 15
Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 7
Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 5
Total Volunteer Days: 12
Total Unique Volunteers: 12
Total Volunteer Hours: 24
Staff Hours: 6
Stipend Hours: 0
Project Summary: 300 square feet of vegetable plants were planted at the Governor's Mansion with the help of 12 volunteers (7 adults and 5 youth from a Girl Scout troop). Volunteers planted tomatoes, basil, mustard, lettuce, marigolds, peppers, eggplant and many other veggies, flowers and herbs. The produce grown at the Governor's Mansion will be donated toThe Gathering Place, a local women's shelter.At the conclusion of the project, volunteers enjoyed a nice evening picnic on behalf of Chipotle.
Successes and Challenges: The rain fortunately stayed away and we are able to really enjoy the outdoor planting. The soft dirt made it very easy to get all of the plants in quickly! Even with a smaller group of 12, there was still lots of overlap and the work moved very quickly. Some of the youth with the Girl Scout Troop left the planting project to go search for snails in the area, which they loved searching for in the gardens! The snail round-up is another project that Grow Local is participating in so that they can remove the introduced invasives in the garden (the Governor's Mansion will even be serving them later in the year as escargot and pairing it with their own brewed beer!). The volunteers also loved the burritos at the end of the event.
Lessons Learned: Being organized and ready to go before the volunteers arrive is helpful in keeping the volunteers busy and engaged during the project.
Special Notes:
Stewardship Education: Grow Local provided urban agriculture/planting tutorials before the planting began and taught the volunteers how to identify plants. The youth also got to learn about the introduced snails in the gardens and they helped to remove a few that will be used by locals to serve as escargot!
Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: I think that having more projects for this event, like snail searching, would be beneficial for the youth and help to keep the volunteers busy with what is a smaller and very quick planting project. Definitely keep the volunteer number small in the future for this project (around 15-20 individuals).
Description of Accidents/Incidents: None.
Description of Work Completed:
Details
| 6 and older |
