As the news of the federal grant funding freeze continues to spread throughout the Kansas City gardening community, we have been overwhelmed with the outpour of support we have received over the last few weeks.
We held our opening days of our annual Cool Season Plant Sale on March 20th-22nd and the amount of gardeners who voiced support for us gives us hope that the future is bright and we want to thank each and every one of you that has offered support in one way or another.
We also received a lot of inquiries about what this means for the future for KCCG. First of all, the funding we were counting on does not affect us immediately. We still have a full staff and our programs and services will continue to operate business as usual for the 2025 gardening season.
One of the decisions we made for the immediate future was to freeze hiring of seasonal staff which will propose various challenges. However, we do have plans to overcome these challenges.
Although the immediate future isn't disastrous, we will be forced to maneuver unchartered waters down the line over the next year as we look for alternate funding to fulfill our mission to empower and inspire low-income households, community groups, and schools in the Kansas City Metropolitan area to grow their own vegetables and fruit.
Of course, the best way to support us as we maneuver these unchartered waters is to make a gift and you can do that here.
However, we understand that budgets are tight so there are numerous other ways you can help support us.
Currently, due to the grant freeze, we've put a hold on hiring seasonal staff that help us through the gardening seasons. One solution is to find volunteers to help fulfill those roles for this season. These positions are listed below.
Front Office Retail Cashier: Retail Volunteers serve customers at KCCG's Swope Park headquarters during our regular office hours from March through May. Duties include welcoming visitors when they arrive at KCCG, cashiering, signing people up for memberships, restocking front office merchandise, light cleaning assistance and pulling orders for school and community gardens.
Beanstalk Children's Garden Assistant: Beanstalk Assistants will help with garden maintenance including watering, weeding, mowing, and general garden clean up. Hours are 9am - 11am M/T/W from June to August.
Tomato Cage Cutters: We're looking for a small group that can cut and assemble tomato cages for a 2-3 day period in mid-April. We can work with this group for specific dates and times.
If you're interested in volunteering, email us at volunteer{at}kccg.org.
Some other ways you can support us is to follow us and invite your friends to follow us on social media. Furthermore, sharing our posts is another way to increase our visibility and our message.
You can subscribe to our Youtube Page here, our Facebook page here, our TikTok page here, and our Instagram page here.
Lastly, you may know that we have an online seed store where we sell our seeds at non-member pricing. If you have friends or family that aren't KCCG members and like to garden, let them know about www.beanstalkseeds.com. Proceeds from these sales help fund our mission.
Again, we'd like to thank everyone who has contributed through gifts or volunteering! We will forever be grateful to the KC gardening community!
