Volunteering

As a clinician, you have the opportunity to dig into horticultural questions. Clinics are all about observation, research, discovery, solving puzzles, and sharing solutions with clients. Our Master Gardeners learn something new every time they work at a clinic. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eFor clinics out in the community, we need volunteers usually Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays in a dozen locations throughout the county. For the office clinic, we have shifts open every weekday. While shifts are listed in GivePulse from 10am-2pm, you are free to come at alternative hours if they fit your schedule better. The office is open M-F from 8am-4:30pm.

Demonstration Gardens are our ‘live classrooms’ and we run many types of classes u0026amp; learning experiences. We always need volunteers for specific areas of the garden.u003cbru003eLearn where we have the greatest needs in the garden by reaching out to the program leader today.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eInterested in working at the Puyallup Demo Garden? Stop by any u003cstrongu003eTuesday morningu003c/strongu003e from 9am-12pm during the weekly u0022work partyu0022.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eInterested in working at the Gig Harbor Demo Garden? Stop by any u003cstrongu003eWednesday morningu003c/strongu003e from 9:30am-11:30am during the weekly u0022work partyu0022.

We run Youth Gardening educational outreach through both of our Demonstration Gardens. Demand for these programs is very high and has been limited by the number of volunteers willing to participate. If you want to have an impact on tomorrow’s gardeners, this is a great way to get involved!

Is there a specific horticultural topic you are particularly passionate about? Would you like to present this topic to our community? The Speaker’s Bureau team is looking for folks just like you! Connect with the program leads to find out more about how you can get involved with giving talks in Pierce County.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eThe Speaker’s Bureau team is also looking for administrative support such as tech support, assistance with scheduling talks, graphic design, and more! Reach out to the leads to learn more.

There are something like 90(!) Community Gardens in Pierce County. Many in need of trained educators to help spread gardening knowledge, primarily in the area of growing local food – that is where you come in. We are actively seeking Community Garden Mentors to place into gardens throughout the county. If you are interested in becoming a mentor, please contact our program lead to learn more! u003cbru003eu003cbru003eIn Pierce County, we have a deep commitment to Community Gardening through our Foundation’s u003ca href=u0022https://piercecounty.mastergardenerfoundation.org/home/what-we-do/sbcgg/u0022u003eSharon Ballard Community Garden Grant Programu003c/au003e.

A program unique to Pierce County is participation in Washington Correctional Center for Women (WCCW). The Women’s Correctional Center is located in Gig Harbor. They have green houses and a community garden space. We help the women experiencing incarceration learn gardening skills that u0022empower them to secure meaningful employment, leading to higher income and increased social and economic mobility upon reentry into society. u003cemu003e(SBCTC)u003c/emu003e”

We have a state-wide organization of Master Gardeners who are concerned about Climate Change. This group of CATs (you can figure it out!) have a charter of accelerating Master Gardener offerings targeted at Climate Change. The idea is to provide additional Climate Change emphasis to our existing Educational Outreach in programs like Speakers Bureau, Youth Gardening, and even through our Plant Sales. If you want to learn more about CATs..

The Continuing Education (CE) Team would love to have you join our great group! We have a great time doing what we do, Certified MGs and Interns alike!u003cbru003e- We put on an annual all-day Workshop u003cstrongu003eFrom the Ground and Upu003c/strongu003e each summer with many experts presenting. This event is great fun and does take a good number of MGs to put it on.u003cbru003e- We create CE offerings each month by choosing experts to teach us the latest about important MG topics.u003cbru003e- We are u0022hostsu0022 at these CE offerings.

The annual Plant Sale is the primary fundraising activity for our Master Gardener Foundation of Pierce County. Preparing for and pulling off our annual plant sale requires hundreds of volunteers and thousands of volunteer hours. We create a ‘Pop-up Nursery’ one weekend every year to help fund our programs. It is important because the funds we generate from the Plant Sale drives the budgets for all other programs. The work involved is huge. It begins in late summer and peaks in April. Where we do everything from digging plants out of our yards to propagating plants in our greenhouses.

As a land grant University that also receives Federal grants, WSU is restricted in the types of activities it can fund. Because of that, Master Gardeners have developed a parallel organization of Foundations in every county which help to fund the programs that we deliver to the public.u003cbru003eThe Pierce County Foundation needs volunteers who can help to both generate public contributions and decide how to prioritize the distribution of those funds.

The Marketing Communications where we reach out to the public is almost entirely a volunteer effort in Pierce County. We have multiple websites and Social Media campaigns, all in need of volunteer support so that we can do a professional job of communicating the impact that Master Gardeners have on the communities throughout Pierce County. If you have, or want to learn, skills in website development, graphics, mail list management and/or Social Media. Reach out.

Managing a 400 person organization of volunteers requires… data. As we grow, we need increasing support on the technology which enables us to manage an ever larger volunteer force. We need people to manage our GivePulse volunteer platform; our MS 365 file sharing systems, and the infrastructure which supports our annual Plant Sale.u003cbru003eIf you are, or want to become, comfortable with the technology that sustains our organization, check us out.

We need a regular supply of Mentors to help smoothly guide interns through the initial phases of their internship and eventual progression into becoming Certified Master Gardeners. You know… someone who will tell them how it really works!