The Chattanooga Area Food Bank, a Feeding America network member, serves an estimated 180,000 food insecure children, adults, and seniors across Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia. The Garden Coordinator maintains the Food Bank demonstration garden at our main warehouse and coordinates community gardening initiatives throughout our service area. This position is expected to work 20 hours per week, year-round.

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Accountable to: Youth Market & Garden Program Manager

Employment Status: Part-time, Hourly, $18/hour

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Responsibilities:

1. Manage Garden / Greenhouse

• Plan and execute the growing of vegetables, fruit and herbs for the Emergency Food Box program

• Daily tasks include soil cultivation, weeding, pruning, watering, mulching, composting, cover cropping, harvesting, managing garden tools, handling plant pests and diseases

• Develop and maintain volunteer base to support the garden and greenhouse

• Act as a liaison for the Master Gardener program

• Work effectively with multigenerational volunteer base

• Conduct nutrition education through garden signage, tours, and special projects

• Ensure garden purchases are within budget and solicit donations and discounts when possible

• Effectively organizes and balances tasks and priorities to keep multiple tasks on track

• Work with Communications Coordinator to post garden related social media posts on a regular basis

• Work with the Facilities Associate to ensure the proper functioning of the garden area

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2. Home Gardening Initiatives

• Work closely with the Master Gardener program to source materials and build self-watering grow buckets

• Coordinate the distribution of grow buckets throughout the community

• Maintain communication with grow bucket participants to educate, answer questions and gather harvest totals

• Supply seasonally appropriate plants and seeds when needed for grow buckets

• Supply plants and seeds to the Emergency Food Box program when available

• Develop and maintain growing records to share when requested

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3. Community Gardening Engagement

• Actively search out and develop relationships with community, school and church centered gardens in the area to support their effort

• Successfully execute Community Garden Grants when available

• Supply plants and seeds to gardens when available

• Communicate effectively and professionally to maintain established relationships

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Qualifications:

• Minimum 2 years of vegetable gardening experience

• Ability to work with limited supervision

• Strong cross-generational / socio-economic communication skills

• Research and problem-solving skills are a must

• Manage multiple responsibilities at once and being flexible when those tasks change unexpectedly

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Physical Requirements:

• Ability to meet all physical requirements of the job, including working outside in various weather conditions and occasionally lifting and moving objects weighing up to 50 lbs.

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Other Duties:

• Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

• Work schedule will be determined by projects and weather. No set schedule.

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The Chattanooga Area Food Bank is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

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