submitted by Morinville Centennial Community Gardens Society
The Morinville Centennial Community Gardens Society (MCCGS) needs more volunteers and is inviting interested community members to its Oct. 13 Annual General Meeting.
MCCGS President Paula Collins said if there are not enough people willing to serve in the society’s executive and coordinator roles, the group will have to look at scaling back its operations.
“For the past few years we have had only about a half dozen dedicated volunteers each year, and it just isn’t sustainable,” she said. “We really need people to volunteer so that we can continue our work in Morinvile.”
The society began with 10 small private rental plots at the Morinville United Church, and has since expanded to include 24 larger private rental plots at Champlain Park. There is also a large public garden area where everyone is invited to harvest vegetables and in 2018, the group planted dozens of fruit trees and bushes at Champlain Park for the public to enjoy.
The Champlain Park site was fenced this year due to COVID-19, so food from the public areas was donated to the Morinville Food Bank.
There are five executive roles that will need to be filled: president, vice-president, registrar, secretary and treasurer. Volunteers are also needed to serve as a coordinator to oversee the public garden, and a coordinator to support fundraising efforts. In 2021, the MCCGS will also look to create a paid Garden Manager position to oversee the public garden and community-used spaces.
“I think we could continue to operate some rental plots, but we may have to look at losing the public garden area if we don’t have more people to share the workload,” Collins said.
She added that in addition to filling the executive, manager, and coordinator roles for the 2021 season, the meeting will also include discussion about ways to reduce the volunteer commitment required of gardeners who rent the plots.
Anyone who is interested in supporting the community gardens is asked to attend the Oct. 13, AGM, which will be held at 7 p.m. at the Morinville Community Cultural Centre. Space may be limited because of the COVID-19 global pandemic, so please RSVP to morinvillegardens@gmail.com.
For more information about MCCGS, visit morinvillegardens.wixsite.com.
Here is a wonderful community garden that could be helpful with considering the future development of the Morinville Community Garden
https://www.facebook.com/NicolaValleyCommunityGardens
Volunteers are very hard to come by these days. People want all the benefits, but nobody wants to help. You end up with the same handful of people volunteering year after year, until they are so burnt out and fed up that they have to walk away. It is a sad state of affairs.