2021 Volunteer Highlights

Dear Friends,

Long gone are the days when Willing Hands experienced a “slow time” of year!  Even in the cold of January, we are busy moving food, connecting with partners, engaging volunteers (though of course most volunteer events are concentrated in the warmer months!), and evaluating all of our programs so that we can do even better in the year to come. 2021 was a pretty incredible year, powered by a hardworking team of staff and hundreds of dedicated volunteers. Here are a few highlights:

Expanding Volunteer Opportunities

We have expanded volunteer opportunities to touch nearly all of our operations, and the outcomes have been significant!  Volunteer drivers help with special food pickups and deliveries; warehouse volunteers sort food donations, compost at our new facility, and help maintain the grounds and gardens. A volunteer team power-washed produce bins all summer at our facility which became known as the “Willing Hands Water Park,” and some dedicated volunteers used their home kitchens to process extra produce for our recipient organizations. Office volunteers helped us with a wide variety of administrative tasks, strategic planning, and event organization, and our dedicated Board members keep the organization forging ahead in these uncertain times! 

All told, nearly 600 individual volunteers gave Willing Hands 5,000 hours of their time in 2021!  

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Gleaning

Guided by our new Gleaning Coordinator Katie Ryan-O’Flaherty, long-time volunteer leaders Carolyn and Milton Frye, and our summer Gleaning Assistant Peter Griggs, 300 volunteer gleaners harvested 55,025 pounds of vegetables (consisting of 42 distinct crops!) from 20 different farms and private sites across the Upper Valley. All of this freshly picked produce would have remained in the fields without the help of our wonderful gleaning teams. 

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Gardening

Adding valuable agricultural expertise to our team, Mikey Van Siclen joined Willing Hands this year to guide food production in our three primary gardens. With the help of Brian Wagner and volunteer leader Bartlett Leber, hundreds of volunteer gardeners prepped beds, planted seeds, cultivated crops, weeded, weeded, weeded some more (!) and harvested just about 12 tons of vegetables for Upper Valley food shelves. Mikey is working on transitioning the Church Street and Farmacy gardens to a regenerative no-till method of farming which will further our climate action goals, and he has enjoyed sharing his excitement and knowledge about growing nutrient-dense food with our volunteer groups! A super crew of Hypertherm Associates constructed a greenhouse at our facility in Norwich which, along with the high tunnel, has set us up for our first harvests of overwintered spinach in early 2022. 

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Thank you to all of our extremely hardworking volunteers for your support in 2021! Keep an eye out for more 2021 accomplishments in our February newsletter.

With gratitude,

Sara Cavin, Manager of Programs

Interested in learning more about any of our volunteer programs and opportunities?  Contact volunteer@willinghands.org