Volunteer Spotlight: Anne Greene
Anne Greene has been harvesting, weeding, planting, and . . . weeding . . .and weeding some more — in other words: volunteering with Garden City Harvest’s River Road Farm for almost 20 years. We’ve been around for 27 years, so she’s been with us for much of the life of our organization.
She told me, "Years ago a neighbor mentioned Garden City Harvest and the River Road garden to me. I have been volunteering ever since.” Back then, much of our recruiting was through word of mouth, neighbors and friends helping share and grow our vegetables and the work.
She takes part in the Volunteer for Veggies program — a program that has been a stalwart for us because without our volunteers, we wouldn’t be able to grow the literal tons of vegetables for places like the Poverello Center and Soft Landing Missoula (River Road’s two main partners). This program offers folks who work on the farm veggies in return for their efforts. This is wonderful for our farms, especially when we have regular volunteers who get to know the rhythms of the farms and the trade itself. How to feel a cabbage for the firmness that means it is ripe. Which baby plants are weeds, and which are the kale or zucchini when thinning a row.
For the volunteer, this can be pretty awesome, too — if they are trying to learn how to grow their own food, or deepen their gardening or farming skills.
“I know that I could never grow such wonderful crops on my own,” Anne said. “But as a member of the team at River Road, I have the pleasure of working with expert farmers, and I'm rewarded with delicious veggies. What a great deal!"
Most summers, Anne spends 100 to 150 hours on the farm. With that number of hours, she and her husband, Erick, get much of the food they consume from the hours she worked on the farm. She worked as a professor of writing at the University of Montana for many years, which allowed for some of her summer to dig in the dirt at River Road. She has written a book on scientific writing to help scientists communicate to a broad audience - helping to make science more accessible to those of us who are not deeply involved with the scientific world. She just finished the second addition and an accompanying teacher’s guide, too! In other words, much of her work is making all sorts of things — from veggies to knowledge — more accessible to all.
If you are interested in joining the Volunteer for Veggies program, you can join our volunteer newsletter or call Greg or Liam, the directors of our participating Volunteer for Veggies farms to sign up for an hour or two.
Note: the above photos are by Anne’s husband, Erick Greene, who took them over the years they have volunteered.