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Volunteer Outreach, Recruitment, & Retention with Lettuce Link

21 Jun 2024, by Admin in Volunteer Relations

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Outreach & Recruitment

  • Tabling at volunteer fairs, plant sales and harvest fairs, food- and urban agriculture-related events, and events held by organizations with similar missions
  • Emailing city or neighborhood listservs about specific volunteer opportunities
  • Neighborhood outreach including door-to-door flyering
  • Providing service learning and internship opportunities for local students
  • Posting on sites like VolunteerMatch, Idealist, United Way of King County
  • Local media such as Seattle’s neighborhood blogs, local radio and TV stations
  • Social media including Lettuce Link’s Facebook page and the Solid Ground Twitter account

Providing Continual Support

Lettuce Link communicates with volunteers through an online newsletter, offers different volunteer opportunities, hosts recognition event and general community building events throughout the year. A few successful methods are:

Community Fruit Tree Harvest

The Harvest Coordinator provides volunteers with training and tools necessary to harvest fruit efficiently and safely. The opportunity to bring fruit home appeals to volunteers, as does sharing fruit with their community and getting to know their neighbors.

Growing and Giving

Lettuce Link staff attend gardener meetings to connect face-to-face with the community of gardeners and become aware of each garden’s needs. Lettuce Link also helps distribute starts grown by community-driven greenhouses to Giving Gardens until June and hosts two events.

Appreciation

Lettuce Link strives to recognize volunteers on several levels:

  • Beginning of the season (late June): Lettuce Link holds a program-wide volunteer appreciation potluck to kick off the growing season.
  • During the growing season (June – October): Whether volunteers have harvested 10 lbs or 100 lbs, it is important to recognize their effort. Lettuce Link keeps volunteers updated via a monthly newsletter and the Lettuce Link blog.
  • At the end of the season (October): Lettuce Link holds another program-wide volunteer appreciation potluck to thank volunteers for their efforts during the growing season

Ongoing: Updates, pictures, and volunteer spotlights on the Lettuce Link blog and Facebook page.

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