2022-Weekday Afternoon: Community Food Gardening @ Harvard Gulch Park

Start Date-End Date: 05/26/2022-05/26/2022 Land Manager Office: Grow Local Colorado Land Manager Contact: Barbara Masoner Funding Partner: Programmatic Partner: Grow Local Colorado Summary: Registration opens March 1. Plant vegetable gardens with Grow Local Colorado! For volunteers 8+. Description: Project photo by Cosima Reichenbach Where You'll Be: Located in the south Denver neighborhood of Platt Park, Harvard Gulch Park spans multiple blocks and is popular with residents for running and volleyball. The park is also the homebase for Colorado State University's Denver Extension Office, Master Gardeners, who grew all the plants we will be planting. What You'll Do: Looking for an easy way to get outside and give back to your community? Look no further! Through our long-standing partnership with Grow Local Colorado, volunteers ages 8+ will spend the evening preparing and planting vegetable gardens in Denver's Harvard Gulch Park. While Grow Local will maintain the gardens throughout the summer, VOC will return in the fall to help harvest the vegetables, which will be donated to local residents in need. Thank you to our partners at United for their support of our Healthy Community Projects! Why It Matters: 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. About Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC)Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC) is the state's oldest, largest, and leading outdoor stewardship nonprofit organization. Founded in 1984 to motivate and enable people to become active stewards of Colorado's natural resources, VOC has engaged nearly 128,000 people in more than 1,000 volunteer projects for a donated labor value of $26 million. Through award-winning youth and volunteer programs, leadership training, capacity-building programs, and collaborative efforts with nonprofits and land management agencies, VOC is an invaluable resource in Colorado, especially as our outdoor stewardship needs are approaching near-crisis levels. For more information, visit www.voc.org or call 303-715-1010. Latitude/Longitude: 39.674849977346476, -104.97738473820341 Additional Information: Camping Available: No Physical Difficulty: Easy High Altitude Project: No Desired Number of Volunteers: 8 Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 10 Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 0 Total Volunteer Days: 2 Total Unique Volunteers: 10 Total Volunteer Hours: 30 Staff Hours: 9.5 Stipend Hours: 0 Project Summary: On Thursday, May 26th, VOC volunteers met at Harvard Gulch Park to help Grow Local Colorado plant seeds and seedlings for the 2022 growing season. In addition to our volunteers, we 5-8 Colorado State University (CSU) Master Gardeners help out by arriving early to weed and prepare the placement of the seedlings. Vanessa and I worked alongside Barbara Masoner (Grow Local) and the volunteers to plant approximately 800 seedlings. Successes and Challenges: Successes:Our group finished planting within the 2-hour timeframe, with some extra time to spare where we spent time admiring our work and socializing Challenges: The temperatures were high and volunteers were feeling the heat, especially those who had been coming from long work days (we had plenty of water, however, having lots of ice in the water coolers would have been good) Lessons Learned: See above note about ice Special Notes: Stewardship Education: Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers: Description of Accidents/Incidents: Description of Work Completed: