Interview Answers

1. What role do community gardens play in building sustainable communities?

Community gardens bring people together. People bond over food and being able to grow the food as a community creates a bond between people and nature where the food comes from.

2. Why are volunteers crucial for sustaining community gardens?

Volunteers provide the manpower needed to make the gardens possible. Sometimes members of the community are physically unable to garden and are dependent on volunteers. Also volunteers provide valuable knowledge to the gardeners.

3. Is the Garden Network looking to expand, if so, how is Day in the Dirt designed to encourage the growth of the organization?

VCGN is not as focused on expanding as it is in improving the gardens it already has. Day in the Dirt is trying to raise community awareness about the organization and raise donations through sponsorship. Day in the Dirt is a celebration of the work the communities have put into the gardens.

4. What is the prefered method of reaching the community (website, newsletter, posters, social media)?

They use all these methods as much as they can. They have found that the people who are connected with them are very loyal and follow them closely. The social media we should work on is to reach out to new people.

5. Who has access to a community garden and what are its benefits?

Anyone who wants to can participate in the garden. The benefits include access to home grown food and an added sense of community.

6. What can you grow in a community garden and what can participants do with produce (just consume? Sell?)

Most gardeners usually just garden for self-consumption. However, there are some small-scale selling operations such as being small vendors. Gardeners can produce almost anything, but sometimes there are written rules. As for food, if it can grow in the ground, it can be grown in the community garden.

7. What changes has VCGN made to its marketing strategy in the past?

Originally VCGN was just Burlington-based. Then around 2005/2006, it turned to a statewide organization. VCGN’s focus was then to respond to needs across the state. Now that it is a statewide organization, VCGN needs to be more accessible to more people. VCGN already had a small social media presence, but is looking to expand it and gain more of a following. Previous to social media, they had more “old school” marketing strategies such as posters and newsletters, which they continue to create.

8. What task would you like most for our team to be able to accomplish?The big task would be communications. This would include organizing and documenting celebration at end of event, take pictures to create buzz at event, MC the event, get donations and live blog at the event. Further, we want to communicate stories of people who use the gardens. This would be in the form of profiles, or short video clips.