The Amherst Garden Club gives back to the local community in a number of ways, including a “Memory Tree” during the winter holiday season, raising and distributing funds for scholarships and other worthy causes, and providing flowers to the New Horizons Soup Kitchen. Learn more about each of these initiatives below.
The Amherst Garden Club Charitable Fund
The Amherst Garden Club has formed a Charitable Fund for the purpose of distributing funds in an equitable and standardized way to worthy community causes. The club performs many fundraising activities including garden tours, the Memory Tree and Plant Sale. The AGC desires to give back to our community by awarding grants to mission-related causes with some of the money raised. Memorial contributions to honor loved ones may be added to the fund as well. The fund is overseen by appointed volunteer members of the club and grants are awarded on a rolling basis and reviewed when applications are received. To apply, please print the Amherst Garden Club Charitable Fund Application-2016-17, complete and submit as directed.
Click here to download the Amherst Garden Club Charitable Fund Application-2016-17.
Projects supported by the fund to date include vegetable gardens at the Women’s Prison in Goffstown and enhancements to the raised beds at Mont Vernon Village School.
The Amherst Garden Club Scholarship
Purpose: To encourage promising students from Amherst or Mont Vernon to study horticulture, botany, plant science, landscape design, or environmental science as it relates directly to horticulture.
Amount of Award: $3,000 in scholarship awards are available to qualified students.
Submission Deadline: To be announced
Philosophy: The Amherst Garden Club has the opportunity to impact the future of our planet and to keep it safe and healthful, as well as beautiful. We believe we can do this by educating individuals and by encouraging them to choose environmentally conscious careers.
Qualifications:
-
Applicants must be residents of Amherst or Mont Vernon, New Hampshire.
-
Applicants must be high school seniors or high school graduates of any age (e.g., adult learners who have returned to college).
-
Applicants must matriculate to an institute of higher learning.
-
Each award recipient will be asked to give a brief written report to the scholarship committee after completion of his/her first year.
Scholarship Application: Click here to download the 2017 scholarship applications (one for high students; one for high school graduates)(one for high school students; one for high school graduates).
The Memory Tree
 Memory Tree 2016 |
Each year during the holiday season, the garden club displays the Memory Tree on the Amherst Village Green.This tradition, dating back to 1995, offers a way for the community to remember loved ones. The tree is decorated with tiny white lights in memory of those who are no longer with us. For a small donation, anyone may have a loved one remembered on the Memory Tree.
The Memory Tree is lit during the Amherst Tree Lighting Festival and stays illuminated through the holiday season and into January. Money raised from Memory Tree donations helps to fund The Amherst Garden Club Charitable Fund, which makes grants to worthy community projects that are consistent with the garden club’s mission. |
Flowers for New Horizons Soup Kitchen
AGC’s involvement in providing flowers for the Soup Kitchen started in the late nineties when club member Gertrude Martin approached the board and membership to see if we would be interested in brightening the day of those who attended the Soup Kitchen at New Horizons in Manchester as part of the club’s outreach to the local community. Gertrude spent many hours volunteering at the Soup Kitchen as well as at the Woman’s Prison in Manchester. She suggested we do floral arrangements on the tables, and it was approved! In the beginning many of the flowers were cut from members’ gardens, or their neighbors’! During the months when we didn’t have our own flowers to pick, they were purchased, usually at a reduced rate, at one of the local florists. Members signed up up to go two at a time, twice a month. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and the feedback was always so positive. It truly did brighten the tables in the eating area! Gertrude eventually moved away, but the outreach continues, to her great satisfaction.
Today, members of the AGC still service the New Horizons Soup Kitchen in Manchester in a similar way as in the past. We have two members who, once a month supply flowers for the dining room tables. However today we use both fresh flowers and hand-made paper flowers for our arrangements. The people at the Soup Kitchen are still always happy to see us coming in the door with new flowers each month. They really do make a difference. For more details and more pictures, click here.
Leave a comment