ECO-ACTION TEAM
These energetic, hands-on team members enjoy working outdoors, making new friends and getting their hands dirty! Some members participate in just one activity or project during the year and others dig in and do them all. Lots of flexibility here while contributing to initiatives with immediate benefits to the environment. Team members actively participate in event waste sorting, habitat restoration activities, and in our Grow to Give gardening program.
We are scaling up all these initiatives to have even more people take action to benefit the environment. We can’t do it without more team members and we hope you will consider getting involved today!
Learn more about the various activities that this team participates in here:
Event Greening: Sort waste at community events to divert compost and recyclable materials from the general garbage.
It doesn’t get more hands-on than this but the events are kept light and fun with real team spirit as we focus on getting the job done - and you can immediately see the difference you are making for our landfills, diverting as much as 90% or more waste for recycling and compost!
We provide a waste diversion service to roughly 5 public events in the city each year including the Canada Day Festival at Spencer Smith Park.
Experience/requirements: Age 12+. (Under 14 must be accompanied by an adult). No experience required. Training is provided as well as refreshments, work gloves and a BG t-shirt to wear. Work is generally outdoors and volunteers can expect to get dirty!
Volunteer Activities include: gathering of waste bins at event, hand-sorting waste for separation into appropriate organics, recyclables, or waste streams.
Approximate time commitment: Volunteers are needed for various shifts generally from 3 to 6 hours (up to 8 hours depending on availability) and can participate in one or more events during the year.
More details about our Event Greening service are available
here.
Habitat Restoration: In addition to hosting an annual “Green Up” ( tree planting) event each year in partnership with the City of Burlington, we also support community partners such as the Royal Botanical Gardens with various habitat restoration projects. Residents from the community are invited to participate in these hands-on rewarding activities of removing invasive plant.
Experience/requirements: Age 12+. (Under 14 must be accompanied by an adult). No experience required. Volunteers should be physically able to use a shovel or crouch down and use a garden trowel. Training and instruction is provided as well as refreshments, work gloves and a BG t-shirt to wear. Work is outdoors and volunteers can expect to get dirty!
Volunteer Activities include: working with and directing community volunteers with litter collection, invasive plant removal and plant, shrub and tree planting projects in Burlington.
Approximate time commitment: this will vary but generally 2 - 4 hours are required to carry out the habitat restoration activities for each project.
More details about our Green Up project and habitat restoration actvities can be found
here.
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” –W. Buffett
Community Gardeners: BurlingtonGreen's impactful
Grow To Give food donation program is all about the positivity of community action and giving. Here, our Eco-Action team volunteers come together to plant, grow, harvest and donate fresh, healthy, organic produce to local food banks. Our Grow to Give garden is located at Central Park (behind Central Library on New Street).
Experience/requirements: Age 16+. No experience required. Volunteers should be physically able to use a shovel or crouch down and use a garden trowel. Training and instruction is provided. Work is outdoors and volunteers can expect to get dirty!
Volunteer Activities include: planting vegetables in early spring at the community garden and maintaining, ( watering and weeding) and harvesting the produce through the growing season to early November to then help close up the garden for the winter months.
Approximate time commitment: Varies depending on the number of volunteers supporting the program at a given time. An estimated 3 hours per week during gardening season with a heavier concentration of hours during peak activity periods such as planting, summertime watering and at harvest times.
More details about our Grow to Give program can be found
here.
Community Clean Up Green Up: BurlingtonGreen hosts a dual component clean up green up event every April in partnership with the City of Burlington. Schools and businesses generally participate in the city wide
Community Clean Up during the week leading up to Earth Day with neighbourhood groups, community organizations and
families including CHILDREN, participating throughout the city on the Saturday closest to Earth Day ( April 22
nd) . We also host a very popular
Green Up (tree planting) event on the same day, where volunteers sign up to plant native trees in a selected location in the community.Our Eco-Action Team volunteers serve as community champions helping to spread the word on this great opportunity while encouraging clean-up activities within their own neighbourhoods, workplaces etc.
DIY Clean Up Green Ups: Of course we love it when anyone and everyone does their part to clean up litter from where they live, work and play or green up an identified location by removing invasive plant species and planting native plants, shrubs and trees helping to improve local biodiversity. Our
Plan a Clean up Green up web page offers some handy step-by-steps tips!
BurlingtonGreen offers a wide range of rewarding and fun volunteer opportunities for community members 14 years of age or older, to help create a cleaner, greener, more environmentally responsible Burlington. 
The work of the 
After 10 years of successful programing and outreach, we need your help to grow our impact and reach even more members of our community to make long term environmental change. The 
BGYN (BurlingtonGreen Youth Network):
