GCA OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
The Garden Club of America
names The Augusta garden club
as 2017 Founders Fund runner-up
$10,000 AWARD WILL SUPPORT DOGWOOD RESTORATION INITIATIVE
Baltimore (May 6, 2017) –The Augusta Garden Club, Staunton, Virginia, has been named one of two runners-up for The Garden Club of America (GCA) 2017 Founders Fund Award. The $10,000 award was announced during the GCA’s annual meeting here this morning. The funds will be used to helppromote restoration of dogwoods, Virginia’s state tree, in the City of Staunton.
The fungal disease anthracnose has decimated the South’s dogwood population since discovery in 1978. The Augusta Garden Club launched a project in 2012 to reestablish dogwoodsin Staunton by planting 67 trees in a “teaching arboretum” of seven hardy cultivars in Gypsy Hill Park. Additional plantings throughout the city’s parks and schoolyards will be made using the Founder Fund Award. The project helps beautify the city, promote continued upkeep of parks, educate about trees and restore the dogwood’s role in the ecosystem.
The other runner-up was Santa Fe Garden Club, Santa Fe, New Mexico, which will use the funds to help create an ethnobotanical learning laboratory at Santa Fe Botanical Garden. Top winner, receiving a $30,000 award, was Kettle Moraine Garden Club, Milwaukee, which will use the funds to support an improvement project in the Bee Healthy Garden at Whitcomb/Mason, an historic Boys & Girls Club Camp.
The Founders Fund Award was established in 1934 to provide monetary awards to projects proposed by GCA-member clubs. The award initially was endowed in memory of the GCA’s first president, Elizabeth Price Martin (Mrs. J. Willis) of Philadelphia, who served from 1913-20. Generous gifts from clubs and individuals since have augmented the fund.
The first award of $700 was presented in 1936 for English-language publication of the oldest-known American herbal, the 1552 Badianus Manuscript, by Johns Hopkins Press. Since then, 81 Founders Fund winners and runners-up have received more than $1,495,500 to save thousands of acres of land and innumerable trees, restore historic landmarks, establish civic plantings and conduct research and educational projects across the country. Projects are nominated annually by garden clubs that are members of the GCA. Individual members of all GCA clubs vote among three finalists selected by a committee of regional representatives.
The GCA is a nonprofit national organization composed of 200 clubs with some 18,000 members who devote energy and expertise to projects in their communities and across the United States. Founded in 1913, the GCA is a leader in horticulture, conservation and civic improvement. (