RE: Re: Volunteers

**&* S* <c*@volunteernorthtexas.org>**

Volunteer Match is an excellent resource.  You can also contact your local volunteer center.  Volunteer Centers act as referral resources for volunteers and nonprofit organizations in an area.  Check out www.pointsoflight.org to find the volunteer center in your area.  The Volunteer Center of North Texas has a Skillbank program for skilled volunteers who want to volunteer their services.  Examples of these volunteers include gardeners, architects, accountants, etc.  Also, local television stations often post volunteer opportunities on their websites.  There are many ways to get information about your volunteer opportunities out to the public.  I would encourage you to consider that every time you are marketing volunteer opportunities, you are also marketing the garden and vice versa.

Best of luck!

Celeste Sauls
A. Celeste Sauls
City of Dallas Liaison
Volunteer Resource Specialist
Volunteer Center of North Texas
214.826.6767 x237

Be sure to check our new website at www.volunteernorthtexas.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Alliums [g*@earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, December 03, 2004 8:06 AM
To: community_garden@mallorn.com
Subject: [cg] Re: Volunteers

Shane wrote:

>Go to www.volunteermatch.org <http://www.volunteermatch.org/>
>and see what is involved in registering your community garden with this
>group. It seems to be working well for us for the short time we have been
>using it. Has anybody else had experience with this group? How has it
>worked?

We have used VolunterMatch.org for about 5 years now and I personally 
*ADORE* it.  I started the Perennial Garden Volunteers when a SSE colleague 
told me that he had a stressed professional weeding his garden for stress 
relief -- I didn't have anyone in mind, I just tossed the "volunteer 
opportunity" on VolunteerMatch.org and now we have long-term, adult 
volunteers coming on Tuesday nights from 5:30 pm to dusk to "do what needs 
done" for the entire garden.

We've also received groups for our Spring and Fall Work Days by listing 
them on VolunteerMatch.org and quite a number of youth looking for 
community service opportunities -- they are used to searching the Web, they 
need volunteer time, so they find us much easier online.

You'll get MANY more inquiries than actual volunteers, so have a standard 
e-mail response ready that invites them to visit the garden, an address to 
put into VolunteerMatch.org, a bit about the opportunity you posted and an 
invitation to e-mail you for more info.  I get lots of nibbles in the 
winter when we're not actually in season and most of those people don't 
actually ever show up, but it's decent PR and at least it educates people 
about what community gardens are all about.

>Are there other orgs. that are similar I have missed?

Regional United Ways have websites for volunteering - it's worth being 
listed, but I haven't found them as useful overall as 
VolunteerMatch.org.  It does help smooth things when you actually need 
something from United Way to be listed there, though!

If anyone else has any other sites/organizations, do let us all know!  Now 
that the freeze is here, I have time to let everyone know about us! ;-D

Dorene

Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden

A mission of
St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA  19460

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To post an e-mail to the list:  community_garden@mallorn.com

To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription:  https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden