Get Volunteering!

Free Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share?!  How could this be?!

Now that we're in the new year, keep an eye out for volunteer opportunities such as this one from back in August that popped up on Instagram.  I've mentioned volunteering at farms before in the post "Got Land?"  The general response I've gotten from that is people don't believe me that volunteer opportunities exist on farms where the farm will trade you a few hours of your time for food.  Well lookey here, a real life example of this exact opportunity popping up right here in Longmont at McCauley Family Farm.  These opportunities most certainly exist and happen quite a lot more than you would reasonably expect.  What you have to keep in mind is running a full production farm is hard, really hard and it is also hard for these farms to find good, reliable people to help out on the farm.  If it snows 6 feet of snow, the goats still need to be fed, etc.  These same farms literally grow food and that is what they have the most of and is exactly what the rest of us need.  Offering you food for a few hours of your time is a match made in heaven.

But I don't have the time to volunteer, I can't do that.

How much TV did you watch this week?  Yyyyyeeeaaaahhhhhh that's what I thought, you can make the time if you want to.  Stop making up excuses, any of us can make time for anything we want to in life, it's just a matter of is this a priority for you or not.  If it is then you'll make the time and if it isn't then you won't.  Furthermore, you have a lot more to gain from this.  An opportunity like this not only gets your foot in the door at a full production farm but it gets you direct access to the actual farmers to learn how they operate as well as to pick their brains.  There's an infinite amount of knowledge that you can potentially gain from an opportunity like this, not to mention food.  In reality it's not really a true volunteer opportunity, it's a mini apprenticeship.  You might not be making any actual money but food is essentially a form of money and knowledge is worth a whole lot more than both of those in the long run.  Knowledge is power which opens the doors to allowing you to do anything you can dream of.

Don't wait for these types of opportunities to come to you, if you have a farm that you like then be proactive and ask them if you can volunteer in exchange for food.  Even if they're not looking for someone at the moment, they probably will be in the future and if you've already asked a few times then you'll be at the top of their minds when they need someone.

Get out there and get volunteering!