Participant Resources

Volunteers may donate their fresh garden produce to local food pantries, earning 1 volunteer hour for every 5 pounds of produce donated to a food pantry. In addition, drive time to and from the food pantry may be counted as volunteerism. Please weigh your produce at the participating food pantry and keep track of the weight on your reporting forms; there is no need to send signed or approved forms from the food bank. We trust your generosity!

Donation Locations

Extension Master Gardeners tending a dedicated community garden in support of a food pantry may either:

• count all time tending, harvesting, and transporting to the food bank as volunteer service OR
• use the 5 lbs per hour guidelines in the section above

If option one is chosen, please still list the number of pounds grown for the use of annual reports.

NDSU Home Vegetable Variety Trials are an approved Extension Master Gardener activity for both interns and certified volunteers.

Each vegetable or flower trial is equal to two hours of certified volunteer or intern time (one hour of service per cultivar) with a maximum of 8 trials allowed annually (16 hours). You are welcome to participate in spring and fall trials but a total of 16 hours is the maximum to be counted toward EMG volunteer time.

If you volunteer in a community outside of your home town, you may count drive time to and from the location toward your annual reporting. You may add drive time as a separate entry on the form.

For drive time related to food bank donation, please see that section above.

Drive time cannot be added to Continuing Education forms, only to Volunteerism forms.

Scan or photograph and email to: Shannon.Ueker@ndsu.edu

US mail to: NDSU Extension Master Gardener, Dept 7670, PO Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108

The NDSU Extension Master Gardener Program reports volunteerism to the National Extension Master Gardener Program and to the NDSU Extension leadership team, annually. Additionally, NDSU Extension provides our impact to the North Dakota State Legislature to advocate for continued funding. We tally volunteer hours worked, educational experiences created and attended, food/produce donations, and many more categories.

Our NDSU EMG year ends on September 30 annually, allowing time for data collection by year end.

Sending in forms that meet the minimum requirements mentioned above, postmarked by October 15, guarantees recertification, qualifies you to be an award nominee, and helps our program make the best impact nationally.