With reporting by Chris La Pelusa
The Sunflower Garden Club is proud to present the first Housewalk to be held in Sun City. The holiday-themed housewalk, A Winter Wonderland Housewalk, takes place on Thursday, December 9th from 3 till 7 p.m.
“We were trying to think of something different to do this year,” said Penny Wronski, the President of the Sunflower Garden Club, “and we came up with the idea of this housewalk because Sun City has never had one before.”
Seven members immediately volunteered their homes for the housewalk, including Wronski. “I’m one of the houses,” said Wronski, “and my husband always decorates outside. He gets a lot of compliments from the neighbors. But this year I think he’s outdone himself…. I think it’s [the house] going to look lovely. Inside, I have a tree in the den and a tree in the family room, and I have a smaller tree in the kitchen, and we’ll have a small tree downstairs.”
Tickets for the Housewalk sold out faster than expected. “We were hoping to sell 150,” said Wronski. “They sold so fast we had to print another group of them. So we’re completely sold out…. I think it’s very popular because no one has done it before.”
Because there is a waiting list for tickets should any become available, the Sunflower Garden Club is willing to purchase back tickets from people should they find they will be unable to attend the Housewalk to resell to those on the waiting list.
The idea for the Housewalk came in August from Wronski herself. “We have a plant sale every May, and it is pretty successful. Being that the community is getting more established—we just celebrated our tenth anniversary last year—a lot of people do not need the flowers that they needed when they moved in ten years ago…. And that [the plant sale] is our big fundraiser of the year…. So we were trying to think of another event that would bring in money and be fun. I had been to a couple of housewalks and suggested it,” said Wronski.
Because this is their first year ever having the Housewalk, there was no committee tasked to the planning. “The board just kind of stepped up and did a lot of this ourselves. The ladies have just been great. Every time an issue comes up, we’ve solved it and gone on to the next thing. So we just worked good as a team. It hasn’t been overwhelming, and we had a lot of fun. It’s been worth the effort,” said Wronski.
The Housewalk features seven decorated homes throughout Sun City. “We’ve numbered the houses A, B, C, D…and when we get the tickets, we’ve suggested that some people start on House B and some people at House F so that 200 people don’t show up at the first house [at the same time] and can’t get through easily. So that’s the way we’ve structured it,” said Wronski.
The proceeds from ticket sales for the Housewalk goes into the Scholarship Endowment Fund from the Sunflower Garden Club. “That is used for good efforts within the community. It could be a food pantry, a scholarship to one of the students studying horticulture; we’ve given money to some shelters. So we just pick some good causes and give the money to them. We do not keep any of the money for ourselves, because we’re not a profit-making organization,” said Wronski.
So far, the club is very pleased with the Housewalk. “Especially being the first one, everyone is very enthused about it,” said Wronski. “I’m sure we will consider it again next year.”
