VOLUNTEER

Share your time with us

Our projects wouldn’t function without our amazing volunteers. We now have six projects all running thanks to the work of volunteers. And that’s before we even get started on the work that goes on in the background – planning, coordinating, marketing, DIY, fundraising, surveys and much more.

Whether you’d like to roll up your sleeves at one of our Secret Garden open sessions, grow in your own back garden, deliver food to people in need or give your time in a different way, we have a range of volunteering opportunities – and we’d love your support.

  • Garden Visitors – Volunteers in the garden can engage at any level based on their ability and availability. Drop in to our Secret Garden between 9am and 1pm on a Monday or Friday. Families welcome! Where possible we aim to thank our volunteers with fresh produce from the gardens.
  • Grounded Facilitators – These are our longer term volunteers who want to have a deeper involvement with us. This could include leading sessions, helping with decision making, specific responsibility like looking after watering or chickens or sitting on the steering group, offering skills such as book-keeping or volunteer coordination.
  • Grounded Growers – We want everyone to get involved in growing where they can, whether in your garden, a neighbour’s garden, at your local community garden or at an allotment. We have some capacity to offer support, consultations and even supply what’s needed to set your space up for food growing. Become a Grounded Grower today.

Find out more about other volunteering opportunities below – and then get in touch!

VOLUNTEER TODAY

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Or get in touch to find out more.

Feed Our Community

We need volunteers to help with:

  • Food box packing – We put together food boxes at St George’s Food Bank centre on a Monday to Friday.
  • Supermarket pick-ups – We need volunteers seven days a week to pick up surplus from different locations across BCP, to go into food boxes.
Find out more about feed our community

Garden Sessions

Join our friendly community of volunteers to grow food for each other and those in need. All are welcome and no prior experience is needed, just a willingness to get stuck in.

  • Monday and Friday mornings at The Secret Garden – 9am-1pm, all year round*
  • Gardening skills workshops happen at the Secret Garden on the 2nd & 4th Friday of the month – 11am to 12pm*
  • *Check specific dates on our calendar page. We are closed on bank holiday Mondays and for two weeks at Christmas.

There are a wide range of tasks for all abilities and we learn from each other, so no experience or skill is needed. Depending on the time of year, you could be…

  • Sowing and planting
  • Watering
  • Weeding
  • Harvesting
  • Composting
  • Fixing & building
  • Doing manual work
  • Looking after our chickens

We have a break for hot drinks and snacks at 11am.
On Fridays there is a tour for new volunteers at 10am.

Please drop us a line first before you come for the first time to an open session.

Find out more about our gardens

Grounded Gatherers

We hold weekly sessions at Vale Lodge community kitchen to preserve and make meals and products from surplus foods we gather.

You can also gather food for us, from your own fruit trees or within your neighbourhood, spread the word and fill out the local map to show all the resources we have around us.

Find out more about Grounded Gatherers

Community Composting

Every day we need to feed our composting machine situated on the Sovereign Shopping centre roof.

We will also be transporting large amounts of compost and materials to and from this site. This is heavy work but someone’s got to do it!

Find out more about Community Composting

Bee Mentor Scheme

We are looking for people to commit to a few years of supporting our bee keeping programme.

This may mean becoming a facilitator of some of our hives to expand our produce and support the local eco system.

Find out more about our Bee Mentor scheme

Other Volunteering Opportunities

We also offer volunteering days for community groups and corporate organisations to come and work with us on specific projects and tasks. We would love to hear from local businesses about how you can support us.

Good Gym is a local group who have helped – they meet in town, run to a site and get stuck in for a 45 minute chore and run back again… getting fit and feeling good! JP Morgan, Wessex Water, Lush and General Electric have been to help too, bringing large groups and contributing financially to a specific task such as building polytunnels and sheds.

Contact us to find out more

trustee opportunities

Our trustees play a vital role at Grounded Community – they support decision-making, funding applications, planning and strategy. Quite a few roll up their sleeves and get stuck in at the garden too (though that’s not essential!)

If you’re interested in becoming a Grounded Community trustee, contact us to find out more.

Contact us about trustee opportunities