In 2019 the Desert Horticultural Society hosted our 14th annual garden tour, exploring beautiful desert-friendly gardens in Palm Springs.
And then COVID happened.
We would very much like to host another garden tour, but our volunteer-run organization is running low on volunteers.
In addition to Garden Docents (everyone’s favorite volunteer post on the big day), we need a host of other volunteers:
- Picking gardens: a critical component for having a great garden tour is great gardens! We need people who are in the know, or willing to bebop around Palm Springs looking for amazing gardens. In addition to great looking and desert-friendly, the gardens also need to be designed to look great in February and March when we hold the tour and do pre-tour photography.
- Volunteer coordinator: this person manages everyone who volunteers to help us, coordinates volunteer orientation, volunteer “uniforms,” and everything else that relates to our volunteer crew. For this role we prefer someone who has volunteered for the event at least once.
- Day of event volunteers: historically these have been people who confirm ticket registrations and handle day-of ticketing. We are considering changing how all of this works, but we will likely need At-Large volunteers the day of the event who are not stationed at a garden.
- Garden docents: these volunteers spend a few hours in their designated garden, keeping tour guests out of restricted areas, helping them with plant identification, and answer questions about our organizations. Perfect opportunity for friendly plant lovers, no expertise required.
- Parking shepherds: probably the least popular volunteer responsibility but so very important. When 100 people all show up at once and try to park on residential streets it gets harry! This role is perfect for people who want to help but don’t want a lot of social interaction.
- Graphic designer: we would love if a talented designer could help us design new rack cards and garden pamphlets, as well as make web graphics for the website and email communication about the tour. There will probably be other assets we’ll need, but it’s too early to tell what.