Dear Master Gardener Volunteers,
We hope you are doing well. Please know that we are thinking of you during this difficult time. We hope that you and your families are staying safe. How fortunate we are as plant people that the essential core of our passion is actually growing (in many ways) during this time! We have a couple of announcements about the program resulting from the guidelines and restrictions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
We wanted to assure everyone that we will show leniency for those that do not meet the volunteer hour requirements in 2020. The stay-at-home orders and social distancing obviously greatly hinder the ability to complete volunteer hours, so we do not expect that all volunteers will be able to complete all of their hours. The direct implementation will be decided by each county or city program. We do hope that volunteers will take this opportunity to complete their continuing education hours. There are many great webinars online (some of which are shared below!) to take advantage of during social distancing. If you have concerns about fulfilling these hours, please reach out to your MGC.
Second, it is with much regret that we announce we will need to postpone the Maryland Master Gardener Conference, which was scheduled for Saturday, June 13. Please rest assured that we are committed to hosting this conference in the future. However, at this time, there are so many unknowns that we cannot select a future date at this point. We will continue to offer as much online continuing education opportunities as possible while stay-at-home orders and social distancing are in place.
We thank you all for your understanding! Please continue to take good care of yourselves and your family, stay safe, and enjoy your gardens!