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go after grant funding for neighborhood-scale store. Keep track of your donors so you can
projects, keep track of how many volunteers announce your supporters at the work party.
worked and for how long they worked for
future reference. WHO TO ASK FOR MORE HELP
If you are organizing a group of volunteers, The References section of this guide is a list
it’s nice to offer some refreshments to say of organizations that can provide assistance
”thank you” for their service. At the minimum, if you have questions about identifying
provide some water, but things like coffee, weeds, how to care for native plants, or
tea, doughnuts, fruit, or granola bars are about pests or plant disease. If you feel
crowd-pleasers. Rather than buying wasteful overwhelmed because you are not physically
bottled water, use a pitcher and reusable cups. able to do the work of caring for your rain
garden, reach out to local churches, service
HOW TO ASK FOR DONATIONS organizations, schools, Boy and Girl Scout
Ask at your local grocery store if they can troops or other neighborhood groups who
donate pastries, fruit or snack bars to your might want to volunteer and learn about
rain garden project volunteer work party. rain gardens in the process.
Most store managers are able to donate to
community projects if they know volunteers GRANT WRITING FOR LARGER
are working for a cause. If they donate, be PROJECTS
sure to send them a thank you note and You may have bigger ideas and want to raise
include a photo of volunteers working — this funds to build larger rain garden clusters in
will help build a relationship if you want to your neighborhood, improve drainage at a
ask them for donations in the future.
local park or school, or get other residential
Coffee is a big crowd-pleaser. Ask at your streets to “go green.” There are many grant
local coffee shop whether they can donate opportunities out there. Contact your local
to your event in exchange for thanking them City, County, Conservation District, or other
during the event or acknowledging them on jurisdiction about grants available to commu-
event materials. nity organizations.
If you are organizing a big event and need
gloves, tools or other materials, it’s worth
asking the manager of your local hardware
6 A GUIDE FOR RESIDENTS AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
