Volunteer with NDC
Use your design skills and support community-led change.
We partner with passionate professionals on exciting projects.
Our volunteers come from a range of backgrounds. If you want to support NDC’s work and have experience in the below disciplines (or something related), we’d love to collaborate.
There’s an amazing symbiotic relationship between our volunteers and community members. The local designers and experts who dedicate their talents to community projects learn from the community about the area’s needs and challenges, while residents get exposed to key design and implementation processes. Volunteers report their experience to be engaging and enriching!
Put your skills to work!
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Volunteer Opportunities
Safe Routes at Cecil Elementary
Baltimore
Help us make it safe for students in central Baltimore to walk to Cecil Elementary School! NDC is looking for a few experienced transportation engineers or planning professionals to help develop recommendations for engineering, signage, and street design improvements that make it easier and safer for children to walk or bike to school in the Midway community. Cecil Elementary is a beloved community school with over 300 students and about a third of students walk to school. Unfortunately, speeding drivers on nearby streets (including Kirk, Greenmount, and North Avenue) can make walking difficult or even dangerous. NDC's community partners at the Central Baltimore Partnership and Greater Greenmount Community Association are looking for volunteers to support a design ahead of a planned application to the Safe Routes to School grant program in spring 2022. For more information or to share your interest in volunteering, please contact Eli Pousson, Program Coordinator, at epousson@ndc-md.org or 301.830.8519.
Environmental Stewardship and Community Care at Riverdale Park ES
Prince George's County
Calling landscape designers and plant enthusiasts with an interest in environmental education and food justice! Riverdale Park Elementary School needs support finding the best location for a community pantry on their campus to provide pantry goods to families in need. They are also interested to understand how their existing rain gardens can be replanted by students with an eye to color and beauty. If you are interested in this project or would like to know more, please reach out to Sophie Morley, smorley@ndc-md.org.
Fiesta Community Garden Gathering Space
Prince George's County
A popular community garden has the opportunity to expand and add a community gathering space. Landscape architects and designers with an interest in accessibility, communal space uses are encouraged to volunteer. Included in the design will be furnishings, material choices, public art, and plantings. Your skills and talents are needed to support the residents of District Heights as they make something great even better. If you are interested in this project or would like to know more, please reach out to Sophie Morley, smorley@ndc-md.org.
“Working with NDC has taught me to listen to every unique voice in a design process and to always include those voices in design decisions.”
— Carol Currotto, Interior Designer
“NDC provided me with an opportunity to work on a project with community stakeholders. I’ve always believed that to have a better understanding of where you are working, you need to go to those communities and talk with the residents.”
— Jasmine Forbes, City & Regional Planner
NDC’s annual awards honor the many dedicated volunteers, community partners, and local leaders who make our places great.
Put simply, NDC wouldn’t exist without the dedication of our amazing volunteers and community partners. Do you know a great member of the NDC family who deserves extra recognition? Nominate them! Tell us who you’d like to see celebrated or peruse our past awardees.