Our impact
The Berkeley Project has worked with 100+ organizations around the Bay Area. Each year our volunteers give 12,000+ hours of service, saving over $400,000 in labor costs, and connect Berkeley students with the people who live in the city.
By the numbers
- sites on our map across Berkeley
- 42
- current volunteers
- 1,741
- semesters of Berkeley Project Day
- 36
- volunteer hours every year
- 12,000+
- in labor costs saved every year
- $400,000
- partner organizations around the Bay Area
- 100+
Hours and labor savings as cited in the 2025 welcome letter from Chancellor Rich Lyons and Mayor Adena Ishii in The Daily Californian.
Sustained sites
Between Berkeley Project Days, committee members volunteer at sustained sites throughout the semester. It keeps us working alongside the same community partners all year.
Berkeley Roads
About 50 Cal students and local residents came together, rain or shine, to paint new roads.
North Hills Demonstration Garden
About 20 UC Berkeley volunteers weeded the Demonstration Garden on Old Tunnel Road with the North Hills Community Association garden committee, led by Celine Gyger.
Schoolhouse Creek
Students restored the site by painting and sanding benches and trimming overgrown bushes along the roads.
From our partners
What the community organizations we work with have written about Berkeley Project Day.
Another very successful day, clearing out overgrown and crowded plants around the olive trees. We collected 39 bags of green debris!
North Hills Community Association
Gateway Garden, November 2024
Read their post(opens in a new tab)…the Ursula Sherman Village (USV) shelter came alive with laughter, sunshine, and the hum of teamwork.
Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS)
Gardening Day at Ursula Sherman Village, April 2025
Read their post(opens in a new tab)
Types of service
Most of our work is outdoors, from environmental restoration to neighborhood cleanups. This is how our service time breaks down.
- Gardening
- 46.7%
- Landscaping
- 23.3%
- Cleaning
- 20.0%
- Litter and trash pickup
- 10.0%
Where we volunteer
42 schools, gardens, creeks, and community organizations across Berkeley that our teams have worked with. Pick a site to find it on the map.
Every team meets at Lower Sproul Plaza before heading to its site.
In their words
Site partners on what Berkeley Project volunteers did for them.
For more than 10 years, Berkeley Project has been an essential part of building and caring for Schoolhouse Creek Common, a community garden in West Berkeley that is an integral part of the neighborhood. It is a large space of mostly native plants, a sandbox and tire swing, an orchard, and an area for neighborhood meetings. It takes constant work to make it inviting and safe. We get a lot done on Berkeley Project days, and we always enjoy the experience, a good feeling all around.
Jamie Day
Schoolhouse Creek Common
More than 10 years
The BP volunteers are always very hard working, in good spirits, and do what they set out to do. The gardening they did at our emergency shelter left it looking clean and fresh, and ready for the new season!
Sonja Fitz
Ursula Sherman Village
Fall 2023 to Fall 2026
The Berkeley Project is a fantastic opportunity to connect our youth organization with (UC) Berkeley students and encourage them to get directly involved with community programs. We love utilizing this special day and the volunteers' help, to complete intimate, quantitive, & quality based projects, at our studio in South Berkeley, that directly support our programming and/or youth participants. In the past, the BP Volunteers helped us replenish our garden, prep art materials, create YSA keychains, tye dye over 100 socks, assemble over 200 Wellness Goody Bags and much more. While these tasks are not difficult, they are a labor of love and require as many hands as possible to be completed so we truly appreciate their service.
Ayanna E.
Youth Spirit Artworks
Fall 2025 and Spring 2026
Applications close Friday, October 9
Join about 2,000 students on Saturday, November 14. It’s free, and no experience is needed.