- May 2, 2024
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“It's more than just a nonprofit organization,” said Linda Ulrich, grants chair and 10-year member of the Longboat Key Garden Club. “When you retire and you move to a different location, you don't have a lot of chances to meet new people. So the Garden Club is the perfect way to meet people and to do something for the community.”
Patricia Kroh founded the Longboat Key Garden Club in 1969. The main goal of the club was to provide a helping hand to the town to preserve and encourage further beautification of Longboat. Now, it provides the island with an outlet for service, education, and long-lasting community.
“The impact of beautification that continued from day one, that obviously has our fingerprints all over it,” said Susan Phillips. “But just building a social network and community. It's all about building community through getting people involved in our mission, but in a way that they want to.”
Phillips is the immediate past president of the Garden Club and was president for eight years. Now she is the head of special projects.
The first Garden Club project started in 1970 with a contract with the Arvida Corporation to create Bicentennial Park, according to the 2023 Garden Club yearbook. In order to raise funds for this project, the Garden Club put on its first ever fundraiser, the Home Tour, which now is a time honored tradition on Longboat.
Throughout the ‘70s, the Garden Club slowly turned the donated land from Arvida into Bicentennial Park by adding different plants, park benches, and sprinklers. In 1979, the club started its mission to encourage education in the local schools about environmental concerns. The club started using the money generated by fundraisers to provide scholarships to local students, grants to summer camps and to purchase library books.
In January of 1983, Garden Club President Isodene McCall started a project called the “The Blooming Key.” The goal was to create an avenue of flowering trees down both sides of Gulf of Mexico Drive. Property owners could buy trees from Arvida for $10-$25 and then Garden Club members would come and plant them in the owners' yards.
The “Blooming Key” project got a great response from the town. By May of that year, the club received more than 100 orders. The Colony Beach and Tennis Resort bought 17 flowering trees through the project. The response inspired the club to push for more beautification that year. Club members worked with the town to replace Australian pine trees with more native trees along Gulf of Mexico Drive and in the Harbourside and Islandside golf courses. The project continued through the '80s.
While organizing “The Blooming Key,” McCall also continued maintenance and beautification of Bicentennial Park. The club also started a grant program benefiting other nonprofits such as Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium.
Phillips said that these events were the foundation for everything that the Garden Club does today.
The club's main priorities are beautification projects, providing educational opportunities to learn about environmental concerns, supporting other local nonprofits and building a welcoming social community for Longboat Key.
“It's made me feel more a part of the community,” said Barbara Gurchiek, former vice president. “I feel like I'm helping the community and having a good time doing it.”
Every year the Garden Club hosts several social and fundraising events. The main events include Taste of the Keys and Fashion Show, Home Tours, and Dinner and A Movie. The club has monthly educational program meetings and field trips to maintain community and connections. Each Arbor Day, members plant one tree somewhere on Longboat Key as a symbol of their mission of beautification. They also host their annual meeting on the same day and invite the club's scholarship and grant recipients to the celebration.
“(Phillips) really has been instrumental in growing the Garden Club,” said Ulrich. “Garden Club has grown exponentially in the last five years. And we did that even through COVID, which was hard because we couldn't really have all of our events.”
Recently, Chamber of Commerce President Gail Loefgren picked the Garden Club to be the first organization to serve collectively as grand marshal at the July 4 Freedom Fest.
“I really value getting together with a bunch of people with the vision of improving the community and the environment,” said Kathleen Garcia, former Arbor Day Chair. “The club fulfills that purpose for me. It’s the perfect place to be with like-minded people who want to give back to the community and have some fun while doing it.”
