Description
Start Date-End Date: 06/21/2018-09/20/2018
Land Manager Office: Grow Local Colorado
Land Manager Contact: Barbara Masoner
Funding Partner:
Programmatic Partner: Grow Local Colorado
Summary: Tend a veggie garden all summer long in the heart of Denver with this recurring volunteer opportunity.
Description: About the Stewardship Site:
Bordered by the State Capitol, the City and County Building, and the Denver Art Museum, Civic Center Park is the centerpiece of Denver's green space. The park blooms with 25,000 square feet of flower beds each summer and serves as a popular event site. Civic Center Park also hosts two Grow Local Colorado gardens, both of which are maintained primarily by Return Peace Corps Volunteers. All harvest from these two gardens supports local food banks, homeless shelters, and people and families in need.
About the Volunteer Experience:
Looking for an easy way to get outside and give back to your community? Look no further! On the third Thursday of each month, volunteers ages 8+ will have the opportunity to help tend a vegetable garden in Denver's Civic Center Park, managed by our partner Grow Local Colorado. Sign up for one evening or all four! Tasks are simple, will vary evening to evening, and may not require the full 90 minutes.
Sign up for one evening or all four: June 21, July 19, August 16, September 20
About the Overall Impact:
The vegetables that volunteers plant will be harvested in the fall and donated to local food banks, homeless shelters, and families in need. This partnership with Grow Local Colorado creates a more connected community; demonstrates the beauty and efficacy of edible gardens; inspires residents to plant their own vegetable gardens; and contributes to a more sustainable food chain by reducing our carbon footprint.
Need-to-Know Details:
Minors:All youth under 16mustbe accompanied by an adult 21 years or older on single-day projects.
Cancellation:Our partners rely on VOC volunteers to accomplish critical stewardship needs, and our projects often have wait lists. If you need to cancel, pleasecontact Jamie Burkeat 303-715-1010 ext. 116 as soon as possible so we can free your spot for another volunteer and have a full workforce.
Latitude/Longitude: 39.739240, -104.988833
Additional Information:
Camping Available: No
Physical Difficulty: Easy
High Altitude Project: No
Desired Number of Volunteers: 8
Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 24
Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 7
Total Volunteer Days: 28
Total Unique Volunteers: 17
Total Volunteer Hours: 68
Staff Hours: 18
Stipend Hours: 0
Project Summary: 06/21/18
Attendees
Micaela Messina (1 adult) (1 youth)
Kristin Sremba (1 adult)
Ramesh Kumar (1 adult) (2 youth)
These 6 volunteers worked hard to weed the two garden plots of almost 10 lbs of weeds. They also planted 9 new pepper plants and harvested over 5lbs of lettuce and radishes. The harvested food was donated to the Gathering Place, a women and children's shelter, the following morning.
07/19/18
Attendees
Justin Fontaiine (1 a)
Micaela Messina (1 a, 1 y)
Andrew Corrado (1 a)
Tanner Gardiner (1a)
Gregory Gorky (1 a)
Ramesh Kumar (1 a 2 y)
Briana Melone (1 a)
Ellen Urell (1 a)
These 11 volunteers worked hard to weed the two garden plots of weeds. They also pulled the bolted lettuce and trimmed some of the dead leave off other plants like collards and chard. They harvested just over 11lbs of lettuce of produce, including some zucchini, cucumbers, and peppers. The harvested food was donated to the Gathering Place, a women and children's shelter, the following morning.
08/16/18
Attendees
Paige Puisner (1a)
Andrew Thibeault (1a)
Molly Boettcher (1a)
Sarah Svitak (1a)
Ramesh Kumar (1a, 1y - Megha)
The 6 volunteers were a smaller group than expected, but mighty! We only had 3 volunteers to start, but we started weeding around 5:35 and had the other 3 join us when they arrived until about 6:15-6:30. We then worked to harvest 20 lbs of kale, chard, tomatoes, basil, peppers, squash, and carrots. Andrew mentioned that our carrots were grown too close together, so we harvested the larger ones to give the smaller ones space to grow more. Megha was very knowledgeable about what to harvest, which was helpful to the team as a whole.
09/20/18
!. Ellen
2. Paige
3. Tanner
4.Andrew C
5. Alex Novak +1
We harvested 34lbs of produce that was delivered to the Gathering Place the following day.
9/24/18
Due to the last minute cancellation with CityWILD, we only had myself (Delaney) and Andrew Thibeault attend the final harvest at the Civic Center. We harvested 82 pounds, breaking the annual record for the Civic Center yield! The Peace Corps volunteers brought the produce to the Gathering Place that evening.
Successes and Challenges: 06/21/18
We had a group of 5 drop out last minute, which made it challenging to get the group back up to the 8-10 folks we originally hoped for.
Folks definitely associate Grow Local with Chipotle dinner. Will need to do a better job in our pre-project communications to make sure it is very clear that our adopts don't include food (aside from snacks).
08/16/18
One success I had was with parking! A very kind city of Denver employee moved some cones for me to park right by the gardens within the park, which was awesome!
One issue I had was feeling like I wasn't able to answer gardening questions for the volunteers. I know very little about gardening myself, so having a volunteer or staff that does have some gardening background I think is important, in order to make it a worth while experience for the volunteers. Maybe even having a little gardening book that has a picture of each veggie, with notes about planting and harvesting would be helpful for volunteers (and staff) to flip through.
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Stewardship Education:
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Details
| 6 and older |
