Bring your boots.
We'll bring the trees.
No experience necessary. Just a willingness to spend a morning planting pawpaws alongside neighbors, students, and the people who’ll be eating the fruit in 2032.
May 2 Pawpaw Planting Volunteer Work Day
Come spend the morning with us caring for an established pawpaw planting at NIU. The trees are blooming. We'll talk hand pollination, and everyone goes home with free, stratified pawpaw seeds ready to sprout.
- When
- Saturday, May 2 · 10:00 a.m.
- Where
- NIU North 40
590 Garden Road, DeKalb, IL - Bring
- Boots, gloves, water bottle
The rest of the season.
- Sat, May 2 · 10amPawpaw Planting Volunteer Work DayNIU North 40 (590 Garden Rd) · free stratified seeds to take home
- Summer 2026Grove maintenance daysWatering, mulching, deer-cage checks
- September 2026Pawpaw Festival, Paw Paw, ILWe run the education tent · with NIU
Sign up below and we'll email confirmed details (time, meeting location, what to bring) a week ahead of each event.
Volunteer on a planting day
Show up to a tree-planting day or grove-maintenance day. We bring the trees, the tools, and the lemonade. You bring boots and willingness.
Plant pawpaws yourself
Take home stratified seeds or a seedling. Plant a grove in your yard, your school, your church, or a neighborhood park. We’ll send you home with what you need to start.
Educate your neighbors
Tell people what a pawpaw is. Bring leaves and seeds to a community meeting, a classroom, or a backyard tasting. Most people in Northern Illinois have never seen one; you can change that.
Donate
Fund nursery stock, classroom materials, and the work that gets trees in the ground. Every dollar goes directly into the next planting season.
Can't make May 2? Get on the list.
We'll email about future planting days, grove workdays, and the festival. (For May 2 specifically, RSVP on Facebook.)