You can get involved with Global Gardens by volunteering, donating, or buying fresh local veggies!
Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteers Christina and Andrew, harvesting lettuce
We’re always welcoming new volunteers. We have more opportunities available in the spring, summer, and fall than in the winter. Volunteers serve the Global Gardens program in a number of different capacities. Some of our volunteers come to workdays once or twice a year to help with garden maintenance, building projects, or breaking ground for new sites. Send us an email to be on our volunteer opportunities list. Several school and corporate groups have also scheduled work days with us.
We had a small number of loyal volunteers who helped with our weekly harvests and preparation for farmer’s market in 2008. Harvesting and washing the vegetables is always a big job and we can use as many hands as we can get. It’s a fun way to learn about farming. We anticipate that harvest days will be on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons in the summer of 2009.
We also usually have one or two Americorps volunteers with us each summer. These volunteers work part time and complete a total of 300 hours of service, which might include helping with maintenance work at the gardens or visiting with the gardeners, helping with harvest and market preparation, assisting with training or public outreach events, and helping with administrative work at the office. At the completion of their service they receive an educational award, good toward tuition, student loans, and a number of other educational programs. This is a good position for a student, and we could set it up as a for-credit internship as well or instead, if that better fits your educational goals. For more information on Americorps, please visit
Other volunteer opportunities are available with the resettlement agencies including the Agency for New Americans, IRC, and World Relief. Often volunteers mentor a family of newly arrived refugees. For more information, contact these agencies.
Donate
We accept donations including gently used garden tools and equipment, seeds and seedlings, some kinds of compost, donations of services such as hauling or plowing, and cash donations.
The use of all of our land and some of the irrigation costs is also donated by local landowners, including churches, corporations, and private citizens. We almost always have a waiting list of potential farmers and gardeners, so please contact us if you have land you’d like to consider donating. For more information, visit the Community Gardens page.
Donation wish list:
Garden tools -- Hoes, rakes, shovels, etc.
Picnic tables
Storage Sheds
Seeds and seedlings
Strawberry or blackberry plants
Large coolers
Other reusable containers for harvesting
Plastic Buckets
Watering Cans
Irrigation equipment including a pump
Canning equipment
Use of a large kitchen for food preservation
Website design/maintenance services
Plowing services
Did you know?
Five community gardens and farms offered opportunities to over 80 refugees to grow their own produce in 2008. This produce was both for home consumption and for sale at local markets.
How to make a cash donation
We have received cash donations in two ways.
If you wish to contribute to this program's operating expenses, you may make a check out to Mountain States Group, care of the Global Gardens program, at the address below. (We are a program of Mountain States and they handle our fiscal matters.) These kinds of donations will be used for expenses such as replacing garden tools as they wear out, maintaining the fencing, irrigation, and pathways at garden sites, having compost delivered that all of the gardeners can use, or paying for the port-a-potty rental which is one of our bigger annual expenses.
Mountain States Group
Global Gardens
1607 West Jefferson St.
Boise, ID 83702
The second option is to make a donation when you see us at the farmer's market. Many people did this last year, and cash donated went to the same place that the cash from the veggie sales did -- to the farmers. The farmers don't really get paid to work at the farms, but the sales do cover their operating and transportation expenses. The farmers have chosen to place the rest of the money into a community fund which helps fund other community projects and assist families who have financial emergencies due to unemployment, health problems, or other situations.
Where to buy our veggies
Global Gardens produce is available for purchase at two locations of the Capital City Public Market:
Tuesday evenings at Edward's Greenhouse, 5:30 pm til dark, May - September
Saturday mornings downtown, 9:30 - 1:30, April - October
We also sell produce regularly at the following restaurants. Please eat there often:
Bittercreek Grill
Red Feather Lounge
Mesa Taqueria
Please contact us to add your restaurant to this list!
Hire a Refugee
If you own a farm, or any kind of business, you might be interested in hiring a refugee as an employee. We have connected several of our clients with local farm employers.
Given the current economic situation, it is getting harder for refugees to find work, and our job developers are looking farther outside of Boise than they used to. Many refugees do come from agricultural backgrounds in their own countries, or have participated in the Global Gardens program.
Refugees speak varying amounts of English but are all working to improve their English skills. Job placement with a family-owned business is an ideal situation because they tend to receive more individual attention than they would at a large company, and their English and cultural skills develop much faster.
Please contact us if interested, we can help find someone who is a good match for you.