Volunteer

“Gleaning” is the time-honored tradition of sharing the extra food left in a field after the harvest. Willing Hands gleaners visit local partner farms and orchards to collect fresh vegetables, berries, apples and mixed produce directly from the fields. Gleans are typically 1.5 hours long.

In addition to pop-up gleans throughout the harvest season, we hold weekly gleans in the summer and fall:

• Tuesday morning at Crossroad Farm in Post Mills (Thetford)
• Wednesday morning at Honey Field Farm in Norwich
• Wednesday early afternoon at Root 5 Farm in Fairlee
• Thursday morning at Edgewater Farm in Plainfield

Willing Hands tends a number of gardens in the Upper Valley, including sites at Cedar Circle Farm, Dartmouth Hitchcock Health, and at home at our own Norwich facility. We plant, weed (and weed some more!), fertilize, harvest, wash and box up thousands of pounds of vegetables. We grow a wide variety of produce – from the ordinary (peas and carrots) to slightly more exotic (ground cherries and watermelon). We provide all the necessary tools and training for all tasks. Gardening sessions are typically 2 hours long.

Weekly gardening sessions during the growing season include:

• Tuesday at Cedar Circle Farm in Thetford
• Tuesday at the Willing Hands Facility in Norwich
• Wednesday at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Farmacy Garden in Lebanon
• Thursday at Cedar Circle Farm in Thetford
• Saturday at Cedar Circle Farm in Thetford

The Willing Hands warehouse is the stopover point for produce traveling from the fields to our recipient organizations. Every day, our warehouse manager works with our dedicated drivers to move produce in and out. Volunteers help keep the warehouse organized, process compost, do trash and recycling runs, and more. If interested, please email volunteer@willinghands.org

Our trucks are on the road seven days a week. Sometimes we need extra volunteers to pick up smaller quantities of produce from local farms using their own vehicles.  If you’re available to be on-call for such things, please let us know by emailing volunteer@willinghands.org

We want to celebrate our work within the Willing Hands community of volunteers, donors, and partners, as well as the broader Upper Valley community. We host an annual harvest event in addition to other events throughout the year, and we’d love your help organizing them! 

If spreadsheets and databases are more your thing than digging in the dirt, we are always looking for help running the day-to-day operations of Willing Hands. Sometimes that means stuffing and mailing envelopes, making phone calls, or keeping our food pick up and delivery records up to date. If interested, please email volunteer@willinghands.org.

Do you have some other talent that you want to share with Willing Hands? Photography, art, construction, composting prowess? We’d love to hear from you!

Email volunteer@willinghands.org or fill out this contact form

We love it when groups volunteer together! Volunteering as a group not only helps us get a lot of work done at once but also provides a great opportunity for team building. We welcome groups from area businesses, schools, and more to contact us about joining one of our regularly scheduled garden sessions.  If you have more scheduling flexibility, we’d also be glad to try to match your group with an available gleaning session. 

Past volunteer groups have joined us from Hypertherm, King Arthur Baking, Celdara Medical, Dartmouth College, Hartford Area Career & Tech Center, and others! Many willing hands can do great things together!

Email volunteer@willinghands.org for more information.