Happy National Volunteer Appreciation Week!
Each year, volunteers are celebrated across the country during a designated week in April known as National Volunteer Week. Why April? It’s Global Volunteer Month! This is a perfect time for organizations, such as Extension, to recognize the thousands of volunteers who provide essential energy, talents, and passion to Extension’s programming. Thank you, Georgia Master Gardener Extension Volunteers! We are so excited to spend the week “shining a light on the people and causes that inspire us to serve.” We celebrate you and the accomplishments each of you have made in your county MGEV programs.
Volunteerism is at the heart of the Extension Master Gardener program. Our founders, Dr. David Gibby and Bill Scheer, former Extension agents in the state of Washington, recognized and championed the capabilities of people to volunteer in service to others, helping neighbors answer their plant questions and solve their gardening problems. Giving of time in support of Extension projects and continuing to learn in order to help others are hallmarks of Master Gardeners. We welcome this opportunity to express our appreciation to each of you, no matter how long you’ve been a volunteer.
This year, we will continue to celebrate virtually with pictures, stories, shout-outs, and way-to-goes. If you use social media, check out our MGEV Program Facebook page and our Instagram account EVERY DAY this week through Saturday. You might just recognize a face or two! We will continue to post as the week progresses. We hope that you’ll enjoy each of them as much as we’ve enjoyed putting them together. Know that you are appreciated, valued, and admired by your program coordinators, as well as Sarah and I here in the State Program Office. Thank you for your contributions to UGA Extension’s MGEV program!
As we kick off this week, we wanted you to see the collective impact you have across the state. We honor over 2,080 outstanding Master Gardener Extension Volunteers who contributed to growing Georgia communities by dedicating over 155,720 hours of volunteer service in 2022!
