Community Gardens

If you are not the adventurous type, let us try something a little bit closer to home. Visual arts are activities that retirees can engage in within their own homes or as part of a community grouping. Drawing, sketching, painting, photography, ceramics and sculpture; there are many forms of artistic expression that can be explored.

As with music, visual arts instruction can be found close to home – in studios and classes devoted to art hobbyists, in your local colleges, and at senior centers to name a few places that are likely to have such programs. Unlike music, because the outcome of art is judged solely on what you can see, it is much easier to pick up the basics using free or extremely low-cost how-to-do books and videos that can be found

Perhaps you have no land or simply do not want to be the primary caretaker of a big plot of land. Community gardens, which are often run by nonprofit organizations or local schools, allow anyone to volunteer. The benefit to being part of a community garden is being able to spend time in the great outdoors and have the rewarding experience of watching the plants you tend grow to fruition without having to bear sole responsibility for the garden 24/7. Some community gardens allocate a share of the produce to each participant, which can add up to a substantial crop. In some communities, the produce is also shared with food banks and shelters for the homeless; so growing food can be an act of service to others.

There are also other unique opportunities to conduct residential gardening in public facilities. Villages within the United States like Glen Ellyn, Illinois for example, manage annual summer garden plot programs through their Park District Departments. A plot of land within the village designated for the program is divided into several small units and allocated to residents on a first come, first served basis, or through a lottery