I was stoked to see that library management have given us the opportunity to take a day to do some volunteering. I have a friend who manages Smith Street Urban Farm in Linwood, and I’m gonna volunteer there, hopefully one Friday before Christmas.

Do you want to volunteer, but don’t have something in mind? Do you want to spend a day in the (hopefully) sun while helping out some of our communities who have it toughest? Do you want to turn your green fingers to the cause of Good, instead of Evil?

Come and volunteer with me!

If you’re interested in getting some mud under your fingernails and doing some feelgood volunteering, drop me an email at brian.mcelwaine@canterbury.ac.nz ASAP, because there’s not a heap of time to get organised!

Here’s the spiel that the site manager sent me about volunteering there:

At Smith Street community garden/urban farm we have work on a variety of projects, from work on the mara kai, foraging pathway and nursery seedling hub are all go this time of year.

We are operational Monday to Friday 9-4pm. The garden is in the heart of Linwood where food security is a real and daily struggle, within our garden we have plots tendered by the Afghanistan community, City Mission have a large plot which supplies their night shelter,  gardens for mental health support agencies and individual plots for those in our community. Volunteering with Smith Street Urban Farm supports all these communities and the wider environs of the eastern suburbs.  Here are three of the major projects you will be working on.

1. The mara kai grows market garden style crops for a weekly box system for members of the community and those in need of a nutrition boost.
2. The Foraging pathway is a long-term project; we are currently clearing 400m of shrubs and overgrowth and creating a series of braided pathways eventually enabling an urban drainage ditch and pedestrian pathway to be integrated into the garden.
3. The nursery hub is the base camp of operations we have three tunnel houses and a large grow on area that provides the vegetable and annual seedling for the mara kai, foraging and wider community projects, attention to detail and good record keeping are essential skills in this space.

Health and Safety

All staff are vaccinated as we are an open-air space mask wearing is not at this stage mandatory however if working in close proximity to others masks are recommended and provided.  When working with volunteer groups new to gardening or manual labour we break down the work into simple tasks, working with experienced team members tasks maybe simple but incredibly rewarding as real progress can immediately be seen. We really appreciate volunteer labour and provide morning tea and a shared lunch.

Please bring your own water bottles, sun screen and a hat, good, closed shoes are essential as is a smile.

general duties include wheel barrowing mulch, compost, weeding clearing flaxes planting and weeding vegetables sowing and re potting seedlings.