The theme of last month’s Chicago Flower & Garden Show was “Do Green, Do Good,” and some of the leftover plants are being used to do exactly that for some Chicago-area nonprofits.
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They include St. Christina’s Parish on Chicago’s Southwest Side and Westside Baseball in Oak Lawn. It’s the second time St. Christina got involved in the program, and a first for Westside Baseball.
The baseball league’s donation came about unexpectedly. Janet Dukic, the league’s new director of maintenance, found out about the program while volunteering at the show with her four children.
“I always looked forward to the flower show,” Dukic said. “But it’s pretty expensive to just go for the day. I saw on Facebook they were looking for volunteers, and at first I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do it with the kids, but they said everyone was welcome. So, together, the five of us put in 50 volunteer hours over the two weekends of the show.”
While helping with a presentation by Tu Bloom Designs, a North Side nursery, Dukic heard organizers talking about the plant giveaway and immediately asked what was involved.
“I was told that the nurseries give away the used and leftover plants from the show to nonprofit organizations,” Dukic said. “When I asked if Westside Baseball would qualify, they told me to send an email that night and they would let me know. The next morning I received a response saying I could come in that afternoon and pick out plants.”
Dukic and her mother-in-law loaded up a minivan with 42 different varieties of perennial and annual flowers, which she plans to have planted at the league’s fields at 93rd Street and Oak Park Avenue. She also planned to create a monarch butterfly station.
“Monarch butterflies are endangered and there is an official checklist of plants you can use to attract them and create an environment for them,” Dukic said. “We’re going to expand one of the flower beds by the fields and put those flowers in so it can be an official monarch garden.”
The plants are expected to be put in in May by families from the league and other volunteers, whom Dukic is in the process of recruiting.
Dukic said the league also planned to use rain barrels donated by the village to prevent soil erosion around the dugouts, and it planned to paint the dugouts and bleachers.
St. Christina took fewer plants, but parish garden volunteer Maureen Escherich said the parish was very grateful for the donation.
“The plants are really going to do a lot for us,” Escherich said. “We’re going to be able to really enhance the beauty of our gardens and property with the plants we received and we wouldn’t be able to otherwise because of budget cuts.”
St. Christina four years ago received plants from the flower show, which allowed the parish to create a memorial garden near its school’s athletic field and renovate its Mary’s Plaza Garden.
Many of this year’s donated plants, including four azalea bushes, again will go to the garden and to decorate the landscaping around the parish property.
Escherich said she and other garden volunteers and new pastor the Rev. Thomas Conde are “overjoyed” with the donation.
“We want the plants to go to good use, and this is a great way for the show to give back and help these community organizations,” Chicago Flower & Garden Show director Tony Abruscato said. “Otherwise they would just be disposed of and go to waste.”
The show donated about $50,000 in money, plants and garden materials such as fencing and brick during the 2015 show.
Jessie Molloy is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.