The Founders Fund Award

The Founders Fund was established in 1934 by the Garden Club Of America to support and encourage member clubs in the area of Civic Projects. Each year the Fund Committee selects three projects to be voted on by all of the GCA clubs across the country. The winner will receive $25,000 and each runner up $7,000. We will vote at the February Meeting. Each member of our club will cast a vote for only ONE project. The winner from our club will be announced immediately but the over all winner will be announced at the Annual Meeting in May. Below is a brief description of each project in contention. Much is riding on your vote, the award will meaningfully affect the projects so please read through each one and carefully consider your vote. You will have a copy of this to review at the February meeting.

Project 1. Children’s Dell. A children's garden, to be created in Crestwood Kentucky, and to be devoted to exposing children not familiar with nature to interpretive trails, field kits, invasive plant removal, native plant reestablishment. It will address the now unmet need for children’s environmental education. The project will rehabilitate an overgrown 8-acre woodland into a model outdoor classroom.

Project, 2 Restoration Of Gardens Around Historic Popp’s Bandstand At New Orleans City Park, LA. The Founders Fund would enable an expansion to restore a fountain garden with the Peggy Martin Rose which survived twenty feet of flood waters for weeks and to create an educational wetlands ecosystem along historic Bayou Metairie, to illustrate the vital roles of coastal wetlands. The project will feature only plants which survived the flood waters of Katrina.

Project 3. Ebenezer’s Heritage Garden, Tacoma Washngton This urban park is 100 years old and serves one million visitors annually, and hosts 600 events a year. The parks first superintendent, Ebenezer Roberts, lived with his family in the park at the Lodge. The gardens surrounding the Lodge are in disrepair. The Tocoma Garden Club proposes to develop a welcoming and educational historic garden at this site.