Volunteer opportunities

There is a lot going on at the Market. If you want to help, look at this list of activities or just contact us and we'll help you figure out what you will enjoy doing. That's the most important thing -- join us and have fun.

Market Days

Market Managers: Be the “person in charge” of the market for the day. Resolve any problems that come up with vendors or customers and ensure that the market is running smoothly. All day or half day commitment between noon and 8 PM (7 PM after Labor Day).

Market Table Volunteers: Staff information booth. Answer questions from shoppers, give out information, help people sign up for our eNews, sell T-Shirts, and help with anything the Market Manager may need.  There are four two-hour shifts available each week, including set-up and clean-up.

Sign patrol: Place signs early in the morning (preferably before rush hour traffic), remove at end of the day.

Behind the Scenes

Organize and supervise special events: Help with one or more events. Annual events include: MA Farmers’ Market Week (3^rd week in August) and the Apple Dessert Contest (late Sept or October). Also, dream up new activities (maybe a bike or walk theme).

Liaison with activities involving Belmont Center merchants: Possible projects could include organizing special shopper coupon incentives. Coordinating samples from Belmont restaurants. Collaborating with wine or beer stores for tastings.

Performance Coordinator: Identify, recruit, and schedule people to perform at the market.

Yard Sign Adopter: Put a BFM yard sign on your lawn

Yard Sign Placement Assistant: Find strategic private locations for yard signs and secure owner permission

Marketing and publicity

Marketing Outreach Coordinator: Contact local businesses to see how we can collaborate with them—Fresh Pond area and Arsenal Mall complex, for example.

Photographer: Take photos at the market of vendors, products, performers, and special events.

Photograph Organizer: Help to move our existing library of market-related photographs into a new software program and organize them to make it easy to quickly find what we need.

TV program producer: Plan and execute a local cable show about the market and/or growing food.

Newsletters

Weekly eNews: Help to write and produce our weekly email newsletter for shoppers.

Roots & Sprouts: Join the editorial team to write articles, help find other writers, and come up with new ideas for articles for our quarterly print newsletter.

Producing Your Own Food Education

Backyard Gardening Project Coordinator: Formulate scope of project (workshops or classes or ?) for using the available homeowner's  plot to educate people about backyard gardening. Work with the homeowner volunteer to recruit and organize volunteers as needed. Publicize project. Execute and evaluate project.

Workshop Coordinator: Find local residents with expertise in beekeeping, backyard chickens, specialty growing such as hydroponic, or other topics.  Organize and conduct workshops that enable others to learn about these areas. This might be done in tandem with above.

Pomona Project: Continue and/or expand existing bulk plant order project. Explore possibility of bulk seed order.

Garden Planner: Explore establishing food gardens in town-owned housing (Belmont Housing Authority) complexes for residents to cultivate and tend.

Food for those in need

Food Donation Liaison: Act as liaison among the Belmont Food Pantry, Boston Area Gleaners and Belmont Food Collaborative.  Coordinate drop-offs and volunteers to assist at the Pantry on its four open times: first and third Saturday mornings; second and fourth Tuesday evenings.

SNAP Coordinator: Help with logistics for accepting SNAP (Food Stamps) at the market. Work on outreach to those who will be able to take advantage of this program.

Other exciting projects

We need help developing projects for film series, lecture series and discussion groups. Got ideas?

Volunteers range from teens to seniors. We'll help find just the right job for you.