Our volunteers are not just the heart, they are the soul and muscle of the Inglewood Community Garden.
Volunteers grow and harvest the produce in our communal garden that is distributed to our community and the volunteers themselves. Gardeners renting a bed in our rental garden have an obligation to volunteer 5 hours in the communal garden, or pay a fee in-lieu. We also have “pure” volunteers who are not renting a bed.
As much as we love volunteer help on a spontaneous or casual basis, new volunteers who aren’t renting a bed must contact us to attend an In-person Orientation and submit an ICG Personal Liability Waiver in order to ensure that everyone has a working knowledge of the garden, its facilities, infrastructure and practices.
Opportunities to volunteer without renting a bed in 2025 will be limited, but please contact us if you’re interested.
Communal Garden
The communal garden is about 0.18 hectare or 0.44 acres, of which approximately 599 sq yds or 501 sq metres is planted.
It’s planted according to advice and recommendations from several of our most experienced gardeners, and then maintained and harvested by our volunteers.
The majority – 75% to 80% – of the produce harvested in the communal garden is distributed to our community partners and local service organizations. The remainder of the communal garden’s produce is distributed to the volunteers who make our donations to our community service partners possible.
Volunteering Opportunities
The easiest way to volunteer is to drop by the garden during one of our work parties during the gardening season. These are typically held twice a week: a weekday evening and Saturday morning. If you are renting a bed with us or are a registered volunteer then we’ll communicate the actual dates and times to you, including if the schedule changes due to weather.
There really is no better way to get a sense of what we’re about than by seeing what we’re doing.
Volunteer Log Book
The volunteer log book is how we keep track of the volunteer work performed each year and is used to determine the quantity of volunteer harvest reward to which a volunteer is entitled. It is used by everyone who volunteers in the Inglewood Community Garden, such as rental gardeners, “pure” volunteers who are not renting a bed, and any community service organization or corporate volunteers.
The log book is a three ring binder containing pre-printed pages for every gardener who rents a bed in the ICG and plenty of spare pages for everyone else.
It’s available during ICG opening hours in the communal garden shed, on the counter along the south wall. You must log your volunteer time on the day that you perform it — or as soon as possible thereafter.
To log the hours you’ve volunteered, either:
- Jot down the date, activity and time of your volunteer activity
- Jot down the date, type and weight of the produce collected for your volunteer harvest reward.
For example:
Volunteer Harvest Reward
The volunteer harvest reward is produce grown in the communal garden and given to rental gardeners and volunteers in return for their volunteer hours. It’s an inadequate way of thanking volunteers for their efforts; we know that.
How does it work? Rewards are earned by volunteering above and beyond your obligation to the garden. This means you must have already volunteered 5 hours or paid your volunteer deposit. Beyond that, you may be rewarded with 1 pound (454g) of communal garden produce for each hour of volunteer time that you log.
Volunteer harvest rewards can only be collected during volunteer work parties.
A Short History
The Inglewood Community Garden was established in 2003 when the Victoria Park Community Garden relocated.
In 2007 the ICG took on the parcel of land which is now known as the communal garden. This land was previously the location of a Transport Canada beacon serving the Calgary Airport. When it was decommissioned, it was given to the City, who gave it to the Inglewood Community Association, who then most generously ceded it to the ICG. Best of all – it came with a fence.
Initially this parcel of land was managed by a cadre of of rental gardeners who began the idea of the “volunteer harvest reward” to incentivise the necessary volunteering efforts to maintain it and who named it “Cornucopia.”
Circa 2010-2011, concurrent with the move to integrate Cornucopia and the rental garden, the former was renamed the communal garden and in keeping with our mission statement:
To provide an organic garden to cultivate plants, build community and share our resources.
it was repurposed to focus upon growing and donating produce to local community service organizations, such as: Sheriff King, Servants Anonymous, Discovery House, the Alex Community Kitchen, Alice Bissett House, and the Calgary Dream Centre.
The linchpin in being able to repurpose the communal garden has been the addition of “planting, tending and harvesting of the communal garden” as the default volunteer option required to rent a bed in the ICG rental garden.
However, it only seemed fair to continue the idea of a volunteer harvest reward to provide some kind of inducement for and acknowledgement of our volunteers’ efforts.