Growing the Spring Plant Sale: Thank you Volunteers!
by Jonah Holland , PR and Marketing Coordinator, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden
The Spring Plant Sale was a huge success! Thanks to many, many Garden volunteers, we raised just over $33,000 at this year’s sale. The total includs $422 earned by the Geezers for their potting bench, commissions paid by vendors who had booths at the sale, $1,480 in proceeds from the Richmond Horticultural Association booth, and $4,300 from the Fancy Phoenix vintage/mini-estate sale, new to the Garden’s plant sale this year. All proceeds support the Garden’s educational mission.
One of the new features we had at this year’s plant sale was Butterfly Habitat Kits to make your own butterfly waytation at your home. This was part of our campaign to save the Monarchs and support our Black Swallowtails butterflies . We sold 100 butterfly habitat kits. Special thanks go to Lorrie Lincoln, team leader for this project. Over 60 volunteers worked Tuesday through Saturday – not including the work of the greenhouse volunteers. Nancy Penick, Chair of the Plant Sale devoted countless hours of leadership and hands on work as did Sherry Giese, Greenhouse Representative. Ellen Hartenberg more than maintained our fond memories of “Marlu’s Café” caring for the energy level of our volunteers, staff and vendors — thanks!
The Garden’s Youth Volunteers earned over $200 selling seeds and transplants. This compares to $80 at the Fall Plant Sale.
Nicki, Youth Programs Developer says, “I am thankful my homeschool gals could make the time to volunteer during typical school hours. All of the Service Learning Program volunteers had the opportunity to work on customer service, money counting/register, and communication skills. One particular volunteer made great headway with communication; greeting, eye contact, holding a conversation, staying on topic. This was also a great opportunity for the youth volunteers to spend time with some adult volunteers — Lorrie Lincoln and Barb Sawyer were particularly welcoming and inclusive to the youth volunteers.”
Homeschoolers Sonny, left, and Kylie, right, helped sell seeds and transplants at the Spring Plant Sale. Children’s Garden Youth Programs Developer, left, assists.