Family Volunteer Idea: Gardening & Community Gardens

Gardening is a great activity to do with your children. Whether it be planting flowers in a pot or planting veggies in a garden, the activity can be done as a family and kids love that getting dirty is part of the job. What *I* love is it gives me the opportunity to teach my children patience, responsibility, not all food comes from the grocery store, and helping others by donating what you grow (make an extra row for donations to your local food pantry). Plus, I’ll take any opportunity I can to teach my kids that work can be fun.

No worries if you don’t have space or time to keep flowers or veggies at your home, there are community gardens all over the place. Community gardens offer the chance to buy your own plot and grow food that you may not be able to at home or just volunteer to work in the dirt. Plot owners and volunteers typically help get the ground ready. They also help weed, water, keep the compost turned, pick veggies and fruit, mow, and stake plants that need support during the growing season. This is a great way to learn about gardening if you are a novice or want to do something fun with your kids or for your community.

The kids and I volunteered at our local community garden a couple of years ago when it was getting started: Three Sisters-Settlers Garden. My girl was only three at the time and she helped rake, dump mulch, put dirt around plants, and put seeds in the ground. During the summer she’d help me weed and water. We loved volunteering together, and watching her get excited about the growing plants or the colors of the veggies on the vine made me happy.

If you are interested in volunteering or getting a plot, here’s some ideas to find a community garden in your area:

• Check at your local community center. Sustainable Worthington has a garden between the softball fields and the center.
• Clintonville Community Garden has volunteer opportunities.
• Hilliard will have community garden spots available Mid-May. Check it out: City will offer community garden spots via This Week.
• Dublin community garden spots: Community Garden at Amlin Crossing Park.
• Google your part of town and “community garden.”
• Local Matters is a non-profit that educates kids and families to eat sustainably, healthfully, and about proper nutrition.
• Justice Gardens grows food for lower-income families. Great volunteer opportunity.
• Contact farms that offer CSAs and volunteer to help. Wayward Seed is a great example, Stratford Ecological Center also has specific workshops families can do together either gardening or tending to farm animals.
• Call your church or a church in your neighborhood.
• Start one yourself at your school, a plot of land in your neighborhood, or in your backyard.