Volunteer with us

Volunteers are essential to our work ensuring participants in our projects and activities have a great experience.

If you would like to get involved in our work, you can find out about typical roles, and recruitment details below.

Cookery Volunteer

Volunteers help cookery leaders & participants during classes, including setup, washing up, clear-up and enjoying a shared meal together.

Garden volunteer

Volunteers meet fortnightly at our community gardens to do garden jobs from clearing, to harvesting to enjoying a well-earned cuppa.

Compost volunteer

Community composting sites across the city need volunteer monitors to help with membership & compost tasks.

Support Volunteer

At outdoor sessions, volunteers assist and enable participants to complete tasks and take part in activities.

Further details & how to apply

Cookery volunteers – not currently recruiting

Volunteers help cookery leaders to ensure the smooth running of courses and masterclasses.

We deliver various courses and workshops throughout the year from our Community Kitchen space in central Brighton. These include ‘community’ courses with vulnerable adults as well as commercial classes run by local chefs and food experts.

We are not currently recruiting in the Community Kitchen as we are well supported by our current team of volunteers. We will post in our newsletter when we open recruitment next.

If you’re interested in volunteering at the Community Kitchen you are welcome to send in an application form. For those filling in a form whilst we are not recruiting, please note we will be in touch when recruitment opens again.

To find out more look at our role description. Volunteers support our:

Daytime sessions to support our community and schools sessions (usually 8.45am-1.30pm).
Sunday daytimes
Evenings (5-10pm shift) & weekends (different sessions) to support our commercial cookery classes

“A big thank you to the team and chefs who create a positive environment and make it fun to volunteer in the kitchen”

Our directory has details about volunteering at lunch clubs, community cafes or other shared meals settings.

Community garden volunteers

We run regular sessions for volunteers at our community gardens. All sessions take place fortnightly on a Wednesday morning. There is a range of gardening tasks on offer to suit all abilities as well as the chance to meet some nice people and learn about fruit and vegetable growing. Locations include:

Please get in touch with us to see if there are spaces available before attending any of the gardens.

If you would like to join us at Stanmer Park you can book online for our Stanmer Volunteer Activity Sessions. These are run every two weeks with a range of garden/outdoor activities to help with the maintenance and upkeep of the site. No experience necessary with a range of activities available.

The opportunities above are for individuals – for group volunteering & corporate volunteering we also have a range of offers.

Garden & outdoor volunteering contact details:

Saunders Edible Garden: info@bhfood.org.uk
Preston Park Demo Garden: caroline@bhfood.bozboz.dev
Stanmer Wellbeing Gardens: rob@bhfood.bozboz.dev
General enquiries: info@bhfood.org.uk or 01273 234810

You can also search our directory map for a local community garden in your neighbourhood.

Support volunteers (outdoors)

We deliver regular groups providing therapeutic outdoor activities for vulnerable adults in the city, particularly people living with poor mental health. Sessions are typically delivered in local downland & countryside locations, often based from the Clubhouse, just outside Brighton (transport available).

Support volunteers work alongside our session leaders, assisting and enabling participants to complete tasks and take part in activities. This role is ideally suited to people who are interested in support work, occupational therapy or therapeutic community gardening. Contact for more information: info@bhfood.org.uk or 01273 234810

Community compost volunteers

Our community composting sites across the city depend on support from local volunteers to maintain them. Find out more about compost monitor volunteer roles.

Seedy Sunday event volunteers – not currently recruiting

Brighton’s biggest annual gardening event takes place on the first Sunday in February each year, and a team of volunteers helps support us to run this event successfully. Volunteers help at our seed packing events in autumn & winter, and then on the event day – on the giant seed swap table or offering advice and information to those attending. Find out more about the event and volunteer roles.