Extension Master Gardeners (EMGs) are volunteer educators trained by land-grant universities to teach their local communities about plants and gardening. While EMGs work on a variety of outreach projects, demonstration gardens are a popular project choice for Master Gardener volunteers. In Georgia alone, there are over 250 EMG projects associated with physical garden locations across the state. However, the geographic location of each garden site is not maintained in the state project database. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been used to evaluate outreach programs in both public health and environmental sciences, but these techniques have not been applied to EMG programs. This project aimed to determine the location of active EMG demonstration gardens in Georgia using existing project database listings and reported volunteer activity from 2023-2024. Project sites were located using Google Earth keyword searches, and analysis was performed in R Statistical Software. Overall, most EMG garden projects in Georgia could be successfully located, but locatability varied across county programs. Geospatial analysis revealed that multiple garden projects are located outside of their managing program’s county, suggesting actual geographic reach of EMG programs in Georgia may be wider than previously estimated. Collecting and maintaining geographic data associated with EMG projects has many potential applications for program coordinators at local, state, and national levels. These applications include matching new volunteers with conveniently located projects, identifying underserved populations, and visualizing program reach for both public audiences and program stakeholders.
