Volunteers Build Hundreds of Gardens For Milwaukee Residents

Rae Friedman (left) and Chlo Baumbach construct a raised garden bed during the Great Milwaukee Victory Garden Blitz. Photo taken April 30, 2026 by Sophie Bolich.

For weeks, a towering pile of Blue Ribbon Organics soil in Riverwest slowly dwindled as Chlo Baumbach loaded batch after batch into a trailer, returning hours later with an empty rig and a gaggle of dirt-smudged volunteers.

Baumbach, the volunteer programs coordinator for Victory Garden Initiative (VGI), recently led the organization’s 2026 Garden Blitz, building more than 300 raised beds over three weeks at homes, daycares and places of worship across Milwaukee County.

“This was made possible thanks to the nearly 250 volunteers who showed up for multiple shifts and shared their passion with the community!” Baumbach said in a statement.

Results of the blitz will soon be visible countywide as recipients plant, tend to and harvest crops from their own backyards. The annual project has built more than 7,000 garden beds since its 2009 inception, with the mission of bolstering local food production and increasing access to fresh produce amid widening food deserts.

“With all the grocery stores closing, it’s really important that people have access to food,” said Liv McClain, who volunteered twice with the blitz in 2026. “Maybe a garden isn’t going to feed a family for the whole year, but I think when more people know how to grow food, it’s a good climate resilience strategy for the whole community.”

Accessibility is a key part of the effort. “It can be really challenging to do all this coordination on your own — figuring out where to get your lumber, power tools and a significant amount of soil,” McClain said. “So to have this service where it’s pretty affordable and comes right to your door, I think, takes a big barrier out of something that a lot of people are already excited to do.”

In 2026, the initiative supplied 10 free beds to residents in Harambee, the neighborhood where VGI is headquartered. “We wanted to make a stronger push to connect in our community,” Baumbach said.

Blitz volunteers work roughly four-hour shifts through chilly rain, blazing sun and mild spring temperatures, only pausing for extreme weather, like the April 27 storm whose high winds toppled trees and caused power outages throughout the area.

Though workers often depart with fresh calluses and dirt-caked shoes, many, including Tim McCalister, return year after year.

“It’s a lot of fun, and it’s also really rewarding to see how excited people get about being able to grow their own food,” said McCalister, a three-time volunteer who, with his wife, maintains vegetable and rain gardens at home. “I love hearing what people are going to grow.”

McClain, meanwhile, is struck by the power of food in bringing communities together.

“One resident that we talked to was working on having more of an edible yard,” she recalled. “She has a peach tree that produces about 200 fruits each summer, and she gives them out to neighbors, especially elderly folks who can’t always eat hard foods, so a ripe peach is just a beautiful experience for them. It’s inspiring to see people envision ways to not only feed themselves, but also their families and neighborhoods.”