Sun City’s Sunflower Garden Charter Club is celebrating its 25th anniversary. The Club’s membership helps decorate the lodges for the holiday season, holds the Garden Walk and Christmas House Walk, and helps with other community events. On Saturday, May 10, The Sunflower Garden Club’s annual Spring Basket Sale is scheduled at the Fountain View Pavilion in Sun City. The sale is open to all Sun City residents and their families, but quantities are limited.
The sale begins at 9 a.m. and lasts until the last of 450 baskets is sold. The club asks residents not arrive before 8:45 a.m. The space and time are needed for the flower delivery truck and set up.
This year, for the first time since Covid, garden club members have been asked to dig, split, and donate their home-grown perennials for exchange and giveaway at the sale. Because it is the first time in many years that the garden club is offering this, they do not know how many plants will be donated.
“We hope many members participate so we have a large quantity to offer the public,” said Paulette Carrion, current President of the Sunflower Garden Club.
Monies raised by the spring basket sale and the garden club’s fall mum sale are significant fundraisers. Through these events, the club hopes to raise $3000 to add to the Sunflower Garden Club Scholarship Fund for Huntley High School students. In the past two year, the garden club has raised and awarded five $1000 scholarships to selected high school graduates. This is made possible by the support of Sun City residents.
The scholarships are awarded to qualified students enrolled in an accredited 2-to-4-year college or university to earn an associate or bachelor’s degree or complete an accredited trade school program. The applicants’ primary criterion is they must graduate in the spring of the current year, be a resident of District 158, and pursue a field of study in agriculture, botany, horticulture, or environmental science.
The flowers at the sale, are grown locally at Kolze’s Corner Gardens on Rt. 176 in Woodstock, IL. Kolze’s grows the baskets from cuttings and seeds in its own greenhouse in Woodstock.
Carrion said, “For the past four years, the garden club has partnered with the local grower. The staff is friendly, service-oriented, knowledgeable, and dependable, and we work together as a team to bring residents locally grown, high-quality, reasonably priced baskets.”
