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November 2023
Dear Volunteers,
As we prepare to welcome winter, I'm excited to invite you to join us for two weekends of festivities at the Gardens this December. We have our annual Wreath Making Workshop on December 8 and 9, along with Gifts at the Garden. Gifts at the Garden is a special holiday gift and plant market to support the Gardens, which will take place on December 16 and 17. Whether you join as a volunteer, visitor, or member, we hope you can join us - or help us spread the word!
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Winter Hours and Gardens Updates
Winter Hours have begun at the Japanese Tea Garden and Botanical Garden. The Japanese Tea Garden will now be open from 9:00 am - 4:45 pm daily. The Botanical Garden continues to open at 7:30 am daily and last entry is now 4:00 pm.
The scaffolding has left the Conservatory of Flowers Aquatics Gallery with new screening installed in the cupola. Tree work will continue at the Botanical Garden.
Botanical Garden Green Teams will be on pause from November 20, 2023 through January 2, 2024 due to the holiday schedule and to allow for a horticulture team winter break. The January Botanical Garden Green Team schedule in Volunteer Central will be added to the calendar this December.
You may see some construction beginning outside the Conservatory of Flowers at the Dahlia Dell. Though this is not part of the Gardens, visitors may ask about the construction. The dell will receive new retaining walls and renovated planting beds, with construction beginning in mid-November and lasting around 3 months. The Dahlia Dell is led by a volunteer group in partnership with the Superintendent of Golden Gate Park.
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Enrichments, Events, and Trainings
Book Group: Better Living Through Birding by Christian Cooper
Thursday, December 14, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Helen Crocker Russell Library, Botanical Garden
Gifts at the Garden: Member's Morning
Saturday December 16, 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
County Fair Building, Botanical Garden
Join our Member's Morning and gain first access to a curated offering of sustainable, local, and fair trade gifts alongside exclusive Gardens of Golden Gate Park merchandise, books, and art. There will also be free craft activities, a photo booth, a plant sale, and a wrapping station.
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Help us recruit new Garden Guides to join the Gardens of Golden Gate Park!
Do you know someone who enjoys working with children and chatting about plants? We are finalizing the plans for our upcoming Garden Guides training that will take place in early 2024. While we have not yet confirmed all of the details, it's the perfect time for interested applicants to begin their volunteer journey at the Gardens so that they may apply to join our Winter 2024 cohort.
If you know someone who is interested in attending our 5-session training course, and who is excited to register for week-day, morning assignments to welcome our school visitors, please share our Volunteer Registration page with them. Training will include basic plant concepts, approaches for working with children, and how to unite the two. We hope to launch the official application form once we can confirm the dates.
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Slices of Joy
- Thank you to Eli for leading our first volunteer service event in the nursery grounds! Volunteers from UCSF's GROWTH Project helped Eli weed and plant rush in the Bioswale. In addition to the GROWTH Project, Alma and Tyler led school groups from San Francisco State University and SF Waldorf School earlier this month. Thank you everyone for all of your work to welcome these groups! The Gardens hosted our final volunteer service group for the calendar year this past Friday. The group helped prepare areas just outside of the Celebration Garden for new plantings by edging nearly 1,000 feet of turf, pulling out 6 wheelbarrows worth of weeds, and removing 6 shrubs and 2 dozen carpet roses. Thank you to Lisa, Alma, and Scott for leading this service activity for 70 staff members from Ernst & Young. While we will pause volunteer service group events until 2024, we are already beginning to book spring events. If anyone is interested in joining us for a volunteer service event in 2024, please have them complete this form.
- Garden After School spent the month of October asking the question: Are there some things in nature that we don't fully understand? In November they plan to take fieldtrips, finish another edition of the newspaper, and more. Garden After School is looking for cardboard! We collect big cardboard boxes to create houses and build other fun projects. Please consider saving any large cardboard boxes that are delivered to you and leave them by Jenn's desk in the Education Office.
- Thank you to everyone who joined the festive fall Volunteer Program Cookie Swap and the Meet the Trees Walk at the Botanical Garden this fall. Thank you to Whitney, Diane, and the Bookstore and Plant Shop crew for hosting the Cookie Swap and Karen L. for organizing the Tree Walk.
- Dr. Jamie Chan, Director of Programs & Partnerships, represented the Gardens on a panel about Reimagining San Francisco at Manny's last week alongside colleagues from California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco's Environment Department, and Literacy for Environmental Justice. The Gardens are excited to be a part of Reimagining San Francisco, a diverse group of San Francisco community-based organizations, government agencies, nonprofits, and educational organizations who are committed to working collaboratively towards a vision of San Francisco as a city where people and nature thrive together.
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In addition to our many Slices of Joy, I'm excited to congratulate the 23 participants of our inaugural Gardens of Golden Gate Park Interpretive Volunteer training led by Annette Huddle, Sarah Sawtelle, and Jenn Tapler this past October. Welcome to our newest cohort of interpretive volunteers!
Please note that I'll be out of the office during the week of November 20-24. I look forward to seeing you this winter and wish you a restorative fall.
Best wishes,
Crystal
Crystal Lee Stone | Volunteer Program Manager
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Gardens of Golden Gate Park
P (415) 661-1316 Ext. 400
9am-5pm, M-F
clstone@gggp.org
P.S. Did you miss an update? Catch up by viewing past newsletters on Volunteer Central.
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Give, join, renew, or upgrade your membership here
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Gardens of Golden Gate Park
1199 9th Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94122
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