Horticultural Society's Benefit Helps Green Charity Work Grow
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The Horticultural Society of New York recently held its annual New York Flower Show dinner-dance on the Upper East Side to benefit its outreach programs.
The theme was "Fire and Ice," which was interpreted into table-scapes by some of the city's best floral designers.
Sara Hobel, the society's executive director, says the group cared about much more than carefully tended gardens.
"We're an organization with a long history, 109 years old, and we started out just to build the love an appreciation of plants. Today we're more of a social service organization," says Hobel. "We want to bring awareness of our public parks and our gardens and our green spaces and we want to build stewardship for those properties and we also want to bring the theraputic power of plants to all New Yorkers."
Mary Van Pelt, the society's board chairman, says the raised funds go to many worthwhile projects.
"We want to help children learn about nutrition and vegetables, growing things. And we want to help friends in underserved communities with horticultural therapy, job training," says Van Pelt. "Our friends in Rikers Island, we want to give them jobs and projects to do and a way to make a fresh start and not go back to jail."
Yours truly also believes in the power of plants, as I run a farm museum in upstate New York that grows heritage vegetables and instructs children on where their food comes from.