What a year this has been for Common Ground! And what a great season to spend time reflecting on all that’s happened. Looking back over the past months, a deep sense of grattitude wells up inside of us. We’ve learned so much, become a community, seen generosity of soul and resiliency of spirit that has changed our lives.
For the next week, we’ll be posting Common Ground’s seeds of grattitude. We call them “seeds” because as we think on them, the impact of each person, action, incident, experience grows and blossoms into a full-blossomed garden of thankfulness.

Today, we are grateful for the more than 300 volunteers who came together over the year to make Common Ground a reality. We don’t have space to name each of you individually, but we know who you are and remember your contribution. Words are sometimes not sufficient and this is one of those times. To each volunteer, Thank you, thank you for being part of Common Ground.

Our volunteers were instrumental in:

• Training refugees via conversational English courses
• Guest training during refugee job-training courses
• Procuring the land for the Common Ground Garden
• Creating our logo
• Donating sweatshirts + printing services
• Planning the garden layout
• Providing transportation for workers and trainees
• Providing training tools and props
• Training women in house-cleaning service skills
• Preparing the land
• Working with the refugee agencies
• Installing irrigation
• Choosing crops and planting them
• Maintaining the garden
• Purchasing produce
• Donating materials
• Spreading the word
• Creating the web page
• Fundraising and event planning
• And more

We cannot think of one tiny piece of Common Ground that does not have the fingerprint of a willing volunteer embedded in it. Thank you ALL!