Description
Start Date-End Date: 09/26/2022-09/26/2022
Land Manager Office: Grow Local Colorado
Land Manager Contact: Barbara Masoner
Funding Partner:
Programmatic Partner:
Summary: Harvest vegetable gardens with Grow Local Colorado! For volunteers ages 6+.
Description: Where You'll Be:
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 ten Grow Local Colorado gardens. All harvest from these ten gardens supports The Gathering Place, a drop-in center for women, children and transgender individuals experiencing poverty or homelessness.
What You'll Do:
VOC is excited to team up with our long-term partner, Grow Local Colorado, to harvest vegetable gardens that demonstrate the beauty of edible gardens, engage community participation, and inspire Denver residents to grow their own vegetable gardens. Volunteer work will be fun, easy, and child-friendly. Tasks will involve harvesting vegetables, weeding, and raking the soil.
Anyone that attends a VOC volunteer opportunity in August, September, and October will be entered in a drawing for the chance to win a $300 SCHEELS Gift Card. The more opportunities you attend, the more entries you will earn. Good luck!
Why It Matters:
The produce that VOC volunteers planted in the spring are now mature and ready to be donated to local organizations including food banks, homeless shelters, and families in need. By growing food locally, we reduce our carbon footprint by reducing the distance food has to travel, minimize water use, decrease soil erosion, and help develop a sustainable community.
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 126,000 people in more than 1,000 volunteer projects for a donated labor value of $25 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: 39.739240, -104.988833
Additional Information: Please review our packing list at here. If you have questions specific to this project, please contact Kelly Clouse at kclouse@voc.org or 314-249-7194.
To organize carpooling please visithttps://www.groupcarpool.com/t/dhbjs3
Please determine the following amongst yourselves:
1. Pick up location
2. When you leave
3. Vaccination status
4. Mask usage
VOC suggests coordinating carpooling in the safest way possible and encouraging a mask friendly policy in your cars. If you have any issues finding a rider or a ride, please feel free to reach out to myself. Happy volunteering!
Camping Available: No
Physical Difficulty: Easy
High Altitude Project: No
Desired Number of Volunteers: 20
Total Adult Volunteers Attended: 19
Total Youth Volunteers Attended: 1
Total Volunteer Days: 20
Total Unique Volunteers: 20
Total Volunteer Hours: 51
Staff Hours: 6
Stipend Hours: 0
Project Summary: VOC volunteers met at Civic Center Park to help Grow Local Colorado harvest produce for the fall 2022 growing season. In addition to our public volunteers, we had 3 representatives from United Airlines, one of our HCP partners. In total, the group harvested two garden beds (425 square foot each). I took over this project for Kelly, who was out sick.
Successes and Challenges: Successes: Our group finished planting within the 2-hour timeframe and had some extra time to spare. In the remaining time, volunteers were invited to harvest herbs and take home packets of seeds that Linda from Grow Local Colorado had brought with her. Volunteers were able to locate the garden where we gathered to start the event fairly easily.
Challenges: Volunteers struggled a bit with parking and how to enter the park since there was a concert being prepared for at the same time (some entrances were blocked off). The concert's sound testing and use of forklifts near the gardens we were working on was briefly frustrating (we didn't have notice ahead of time that concert prep would be occurring during our event), but it resolved quickly. Volunteers needed to be cautious around certain parts of the garden beds since there was a ground wasp nest, but fortunately no was stung. The biggest challenge was the amount of vegetation that needed to be hauled away to be composted (~20 bags). The City and County of Denver Recycle Drop Off (aka Cherry Creek Recycle Drop Off) didn't accept our bags at first because they saw the Wilder van and stated that they don't take compost from "professional services", even after we explained that we are a non-profit. I got in touch with the manager there, Joshua Salazar eventually who clarified things with his shift supervisors and allowed us to drop off again. His information is included below for future reference:
Joshua Salazar
Cell: (303) 710-7824
Desk: (720) 285-4563
Email: Joshua.salazar@denvergov.org
Lessons Learned: It would be best to know ahead of time of any special events that result in entrances being blocked off at Civic Center Park, so we can direct volunteers accordingly. It is also best to know the amount of bags of vegetation we can expect ahead of time, so Project Managers can plan time to take it to be dropped off in a reasonable timeframe after the event.
Special Notes:
Stewardship Education:
Key Concerns or Comments from Staff or Volunteers:
Description of Accidents/Incidents:
Description of Work Completed:
Details
| 6 and older |
