Bloomingdale Garden Club celebrates 50 years
The Bloomingdale Garden Club was started by seven ardent gardening friends and neighbors on April 19, 1963, with the aim of being “helpful to the members and, in time, a benefit to the community.”
Those seven original members would be thrilled to see the results of their little adventure.
Today, the Bloomingdale Garden Club, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this fall, boasts a membership of nearly 50 men and women, including a few who joined the club back in the 1960s like former President Marian Jonas, who just celebrated her 95th birthday.
These faithful members are the foundation of the club’s goal to foster a love of gardening within the club and community.
Programs
The club’s early years were filled with monthly programs, spring luncheons, floral competitions and garden walks. The club’s first plant sale was in 1965. The annual event first was held in members’ gardens, then the library, and at the Bloomingdale village hall for many years before moving last spring to the Bloomingdale Park District Maintenance Building in Springfield Park.
Remaining relevant and active in Bloomingdale and neighboring communities, the club hosts monthly programs, meetings and workshops at the Bloomingdale Police Department. Speakers educate and entertain on a variety of gardening topics, reflecting the range of interest among the club’s diverse members.
Philanthropy
Plant sale profits fund the club’s activities, including its wide-ranging philanthropic efforts. Recipients of the club’s generosity have included the DuPage Convalescent Center, Poised for Success, DuPage PADS, Stepping Stones, Heifer International, Bloomingdale Elementary District 13 Education Foundation, Bloomingdale VFW, West Suburban Care Center and local food pantries.
The club is proud of its collaboration with the DuPage Convalescent Center and the University of Illinois Extension master gardeners. In 2012, the club obtained a Quality of Life Grant grant of more than $10,000 from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and applied it to the therapeutic horticulture program at the convalescent center.
The grant funded renovations to the convalescent center’s resident garden, including the design and installation of a wheelchair-accessible cutting garden. The garden is designed in a sunburst of eight colorful rays.
Bloomingdale Garden Club volunteers help the U of I master gardeners with springtime planting of garden annuals. The garden also features vertical plantings, a shade garden, pergola, fountain and container gardens, providing a beautiful setting for residents and their families to enjoy nature.
The prophecy set forth at the first meeting — that the garden would be “helpful to the members and, in time, a benefit to our community” — has become a reality for the Bloomingdale Garden Club.
For information on the club, visit www.bloomingdalegardenclub.org.