Volunteering issues in community gardens have been an ongoing problem and have resulted in high turnover and untrained volunteers that may not have the skills to appropriately staff a community garden. The problem of having to train or have dedicated staff at a garden to assist volunteers is that often community gardens are not funded, or garden staff are stretched too thin. To inspect factors in volunteerism in community gardens, researchers sent out a ten-question survey to head community garden leaders (N=51) across the U.S. Overall, researchers found that many gardens perceive educational opportunities and the people that attend the garden as successful elements, while volunteer retention and education, along with signage issues, were the most prevalent problem. Finally, when asked about signage, most signs turned out to be purely informative and attractive, with few playing educational roles. Researchers concluded that educational signage may play an important role in the garden that many community gardens are missing. To understand further how educational signage plays a role in people’s understanding of a subject, researchers have developed another survey that is currently being distributed to the public. The data from this survey will allow researchers to more effectively use signage to not only attract but educate and train volunteers to relieve some of the burden from community garden staff.
