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GardeningSG
Garden group management

Attracting Volunteers

29 September 2023

Volunteers are the lifeblood of any community garden, so attracting and retaining them are important for keeping the garden running.

Two men pointing at leafy greens under a grow light, one of them holding a small child.

Volunteers are the lifeblood of any community garden, so attracting and retaining them are important for keeping the garden running. While most volunteers will be needed to maintain the garden, some volunteers can also play other roles, such as managing social media or organising logistics for learning journeys.

Here are some tips to help you attract more volunteers for your community carden:

  1. Keep your community garden safe and neat! People will naturally be attracted to a garden that looks welcoming and interesting. Having garden themes, clear pathways, and a regular maintenance schedule will draw in all kinds of visitors who may one day become your volunteers.

  2. Engage your residents and nearby stakeholders. Working together with your local grassroots organisations is a great way to know your neighbours, especially if you to organise gardening activities such as a harvest day and gardening workshops to engage them. You can also consider reaching out to nearby schools or organisations that would be interested in gardening, with preschools and senior care centres being popular choices for collaboration. Volunteers will naturally emerge from these interactions as you continue to do outreach to the community!

  3. Maintain relationships among your existing garden members with welfare events. Simple social events as such potlucks, visits to other community gardens, learning journeys and garden parties are good ways to bring your existing volunteers together, and acknowledge all their hard work. Keeping your volunteers feeling appreciated and engaged will naturally make your community an attractive place for others to volunteer as well.

  4. Promote your garden on social media platforms. Digital platforms like Facebook and Instagram are good ways to reach beyond your neighbourhood to the rest of Singapore, and maybe even beyond! Active gardens with interesting posts will draw engagement from the online gardening community, which in turn will give you a platform to offer volunteering opportunities as needed.

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