Join the Jewish Volunteers Gardening Brigade (the “Brigade”), a lively Greater Boston community group of food growers that includes:

• Monthly meetups, garden tours, and volunteer opportunities;
• Access to peer learning and mentor/mentee matches;
• An email-based online forum for sharing questions, celebrations and learning; 
• A weekly Shabbat email to inspire, inform, and move you to action;
• End-of-season Sukkot celebration(s).

The Brigade is a mobilization to support and engage new gardeners. As gardens spring up in our neighborhoods around greater Boston, we are answering the call to ensure they are delicious the entire growing season. At the same time, the Brigade connects small-scale efforts at growing food to build a more resilient web for all. 

Cultivating this web is like making good sourdough bread; it takes the culture to make it rise up. The Brigade is committed to nurturing each member just as we nurture the sacred earth. We’re seeding friendships with positivity, patience, and open-mindedness. We are members of an intergenerational, cross-denominational community, responsible for each other. We believe that our diversity is our strength that allows for cross-pollination of ideas. 

Beantown Jewish Gardens has been connecting the greater Boston Jewish food justice community since 2011. We have worked with individuals, synagogues, and day schools. The membership fee, at a sliding scale of $54 – $180, will provide the ingredients necessary to build our resiliency toolbox and a welcoming community in which nobody will be turned away for lack of funds. All donors will receive a 5- gallon fabric grow pot to develop a starter garden, good for indoors or out.

In addition, your generous donation will support the Brigade’s ability to engage and support local partners who are gardening for and with food insecure individuals. Via volunteering and donations of grow pots, we are currently supporting the warming center at Temple Beth Israel in Waltham to grow herbs for lunch for individuals experiencing homelessness.

All of Israel is responsible for each other.

Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about the Brigade. Please be in touch if you want to know more.