Arthur Rose, winner of the FGS 2001 Gardener of the Year Award for Outstanding Services to the Gardens.

Volunteers Needed
The FGS encourages the interest and cooperation of all gardeners in the maintenance and preservation of the Victory Gardens. Participation is expected. The range of seasonal projects includes assisting gardeners with special needs, clearing abandoned gardens, maintaining the FGS compost, cleaning the area of debris, and helping out with our annual community event, FensFest.

The following volunteer posts are now available. If you are interested, please fill out the contact form HERE.

Current Needs:

There are a number of office-type tasks we could use help with. The tasks are described below; each can be done independently. All require a computer, internet connection and some knowledge of Microsoft Word and Excel (with the possible exception of the first task, “Telephone”).

 

1. Telephone. We get several calls a day all of which are captured in voicemail. You would check FGS voice mail everyday, turn the voicemail message into email and send it to the appropriate FGS person for handling. With the FGS voicemail system it may be possible to forward the voice message directly cutting out the typing it into email step – that would be something for you to explore.

 

2. New applicants. We get approximately 100 new gardener applications a year all via posted mail. While they come in year round, the heaviest volume is in the first half of the calendar year. We:

  1. Acknowledge receipt of all applications
  2. Enter the information from the applications into a Excel worksheet
  3. Periodically create a mailing running a Word mail merge using the most recent applications data from the Excel worksheet to let gardeners self select their top choices
  4. Collect and enter their top choices into the Excel worksheet
  5. Create a second mailing using Word mail merge using the Excel worksheet to let the new gardeners know which plot they were assigned

 

3. All Park Clean Up Days. We do 4 All Park Clean Up Days per year, all from Apr to Oct. The paper work behind the clean up involves:

  1. Sorting the member Excel spreadsheet to identify who signed up
  2.  Creating a mailing using Word mail merge using the Excel spreadsheet to send out invitations
  3. Inputting to an Excel spreadsheet who actually showed up from “at the event” sign up sheets, and:
    1. Doing a mail merge to send thanks
    2. Doing a mail merge to push those who signed up but didn’t show up to select another clean up day date

 

4. Inspections. We run at least several inspections per year, maybe as many as 6-8 what with follow ups and all. Like everything else, inspections create paperwork which involves:

  1. Inputting the inspection results into an Excel spreadsheet
  2. Creating a mailing using Word mail merge to report the infractions to gardeners needing to follow up

 

5. Renewals. Each year approximately 250 gardeners from the previous year renew their FGS memberships/plots and, of these, many donate cash to FGS. The required paperwork follows:

  1. Inputting information from Renewal Applications into Excel spreadsheet
  2. Sending a receipt acknowledgement plus a thank you to those donating cash