Volunteer
Join us at one of our garden spaces to learn about how to maintain gardens, grow healthy food, and support the communities that are in food-insecure neighborhoods.
Who can volunteer with us?
Community volunteer events are open to anyone who is a part of the Gardeneers community. This includes partner school staff, faculty, and students; those that live in the area around the school garden; and other members of the broader community. We welcome volunteers of all ages but volunteers 13 and younger must be accompanied by an adult.

How will I benefit?
Enhance
Program Quality
Help our educators deliver impactful garden and farm education
Learn Gardening Skills
Learn how to grow a garden and help maintain our brand standards of beautiful community gardens
Serve as an Ambassador
Increase awareness of our brand and make insightful connections to grow our volunteer network
Expectations for Volunteer Days
We are excited for you to join us for a volunteer day! As a volunteer you get the opportunity to develop new skills and meet like-minded individuals. Together we can strengthen hyper-local nourishing food systems.
Gardeneers provides full-service garden education. Full-service means we stick around—our Garden Educators are present, often a fixture in their garden community. They listen, they provide tools, they teach, they support, they get their hands dirty. We connect our gardens with community and city partners to expand the reach of each garden and many corners of the food inequity problem.
Read on to learn more about how to prepare for your volunteer day!
Our volunteers complete maintenance support for our gardens including watering, weeding, planting, harvesting, pest control, and coordinating tasks with our garden educators.
Volunteers must wear unmarked plain shirts during shifts preferably in gray, navy or dark green. For your safety wear close-toed shoes and long pants. We also recommend that you also bring sunscreen, a hat, and a refillable water bottle. A water cooler is provided on site for refills.
If there is inclimate weather, please contact the Garden Educator to see if there will be a shift for that day. Weather may affect the meeting location so please confirm where program will be held.
Neighborhoods
Riverdale
Pullman
Chatham
Auburn Gresham
Marquette Park
Englewood
Back of the Yards
Woodlawn
