Boone County: Master Gardeners Staying Connected

Master Gardeners Staying Connected was a virtual program developed to keep Master Gardener volunteers engaged, once the Covid-19 regulations began.   Forty-seven Master Gardener volunteers are invited weekly to engage using zoom.  During our staying connected zoom meetings, Master Gardener volunteers have the opportunity to educate others about plants in their in their yards and University of Kentucky horticulture publication review.

Allowing Master Gardeners to assist in teaching the zoom meetings, it has given them more confidence in their teachings abilities, learning from each other has created a distance bond to help them feel like and team and they are still connected as a group.  This has brought other Master Gardener volunteers out of their shell to get to know other people and just communicating others that might not have talked to before.   Master Gardeners have also mentioned that the zoom program helped their mental health during the stay at home order because some were not in any contact with other people.  This was a comfortable outlet for them to connect with other humans.

Master Gardeners are using their leadership skills, they are gaining knowledge from the University of Kentucky horticulture publications, and this allows them to continue collecting their education hours and volunteer’s hours for the Master Gardener program.