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How To Find Gardening Volunteer Opportunities Near Me

“Gardening volunteer opportunities near me” is what people often search when they want to get their hands into soil but do not have their own garden space. There are a multitude of places to find gardening volunteer opportunities with many of them found online. Search for city botanic gardens, community gardens, flea market gardens, or even an online ad space likes Craigslist.org.

Where Can I Go To Volunteer Near Me?

Look for volunteer opportunities online on a computer

You can find volunteer work in many places. Let’s face it, people often need help and have knowledge to share but do not necessarily have the funds to pay you. If you want to pick up a new skill or learn more about a subject that interests you, volunteering is the best way to gain hands-on experience. Also, if you want to change your career, you can get valuable experience or try out a new profession before making a long-term commitment. To find the answer to “where can I go to volunteer near me”, you have many choices but the easiest is probably in the palm of your hand. Do a search online, on your smartphone or laptop.

Finding Gardening Volunteer Opportunities Near Me

To find opportunities, type “garden volunteer work near me” in a search box on your phone or laptop. Make sure you have location enabled so you can see results that are in your community. If that does not give you any apparent information, try broadening the search by looking for community gardens, community farms, or botanic gardens in your area. On the websites you find, go to their search box and type in “volunteer”. If they have opportunities, the page will load with the volunteer work they have available. Finally, search for garden clubs, civic groups, or garden groups on Facebook near you.

In addition, you may find volunteer opportunities near you in your local newspaper or on ad space like Craigslist.org.

Gardens To Volunteer At Near Me

There are a few global or national volunteer sites that have information about gardens to volunteer at near you.

U.S. Botanic Garden Volunteer

U.S Botanic gardens

The U.S. Botanic Gardens in Washington DC has an ongoing volunteer program. While they are not taking new volunteers for 2022, their website does urge visitors to come back in the fall of 2022. They also have a calendar of online training and lectures which I will have on our Kaymartco events calendar page. Recent classes have included:

  • Can My Cat Nibble
  • Gardening For Pollinators In Spring
  • Ask An Expert: Growing Orchids At Home

Voluntouring.org

Voluntouring.org offers different types of volunteer opportunities but they also have a subheading for gardening which is linked in the heading above. The gardening opportunities are world-wide. There is one garden volunteer opportunity in Virginia. This program is for fit individuals that can work 6 hours per day, 5 days per week in exchange for room and board. They allow you to come for a few days to make sure it is a good fit for everyone. This off-grid farming opportunity in Virginia can be linked here.

Find City Garden and University Gardening Volunteer Opportunties

Almost every large U.S. city has its own botanic garden like the Washington DC National Botanic Garden above. For example, here is a link to the Phoenix, Arizona Desert Landscape School dashboard. They have online classes that can lead to gardening volunteer opportunities in the park or at their events. Once you attend lectures or classes at botanic gardens, you can meet like-minded gardeners and the program coordinators who can help you find volunteer opportunities.

Finally, ask other gardeners in your area if they know of any volunteer gardening opportunities. Your local library may have information or be able to help you find information. And, local nurseries will probably know of events or offer you a part-time job with pay.

Benefits Of Community Volunteering

I had in mind to find garden volunteer opportunities for people that do not have the space to dig into the soil. However, after researching for this blog post, I realized there are benefits for everyone in community volunteering.

  • It helps to connect with other gardeners while helping your community. You interact with people that have similar interests while it gets you away from the digital world. You are able to make friends, enhance your own social skills, and learn or impart information about gardening.
  • Garden volunteer opportunities help your mind and body. It can ease anxiety or get your mind off of negative news. The physical aspects of gardening allow for greater mobility, flexibility, and can lower blood pressure. Walking, instead of sitting at home, is an easy way to burn calories to lose weight.
  • Volunteering makes you happy and healthy.  Researchers have discovered that being helpful to others delivers immense pleasure. (Read this Press Release)
  • Garden volunteering opportunities can help advance your career. If you are a bank teller or lawyer, you may think I am stretching this a bit. However, there are many volunteer position that allow you to gain confidence by talking to others to explain how a plant is cared for, for example. This trains you to be more organized in your thinking. It allows you to realize that speaking about what you love, gardening, can help you speak up about things that are important to you.

Conclusion

Garden volunteering opportunities are easy to find if you know where to look. You can also ask local home or gardening centers, if they need help with customers. You can ask your neighbors if they want to have a community garden. I have not volunteered yet at a community garden but we do help to cut the grass and clean up the local cemetery. I routinely share plants and learn from the local gardeners in our village. Have you volunteered before? Please leave a comment in the form below. I love hearing from you!

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