Garden Club honored by Kiwanis

The Kiwanis Club of Sisters recently presented its Everyday Hero Award to the Sisters Garden Club. The award is presented to a person or organization in the community that has gone “above and beyond.”

The efforts of more than 70 members are enjoyed by residents and tourists as they travel through Sisters.

The Sisters Garden Club was started in 1988 by Claudia Grooney, Barbara Warren and Mike Woosley. By 1989 there were 13 members and their first project was to design and landscape “The Point,” an undeveloped street-side area at the intersection of Hood Avenue and Highway 20.

In 1990 the club was part of a larger community effort to design and landscape the Sisters Library garden. Various projects followed including the other side of the Hood/Highway 20 intersection, known as “The Cabin,” and landscaping of the gazebo in the Village Green.

According to current president Mary Crow, the turning point for the club was when it started garden tours in co-ordination with the 1998 Quilt Show. That year the club raised $4,000 from the garden tours, part of which was set aside to be used for the four community gardens: The Point, The Cabin, The Library, and The Gazebo.

A donation was also made to the Sisters High School Science Department for the purchase of field guides and resource text to be used in their wetlands restoration project.

In 2001, the club was chartered as a charitable organization with the intent ofdonating all proceeds back to the community.

In 2004, the Seventh Annual Quilt Show Gardens & Homes Tour netted more than $6,000 for the club and to-date the club has donated more than $31,000 to various community organizations, including the schools.

The club presents a featured speaker each month. In June, Sue Anderson, naturalist and photographer, will lead a “Butterfly Walk.” July is taken up with the Quilt Show Garden Tour. Other programs this year include “Noxious Weeds,” a Deschutes Basin Land Tour and “OrganicGardening.”

Members of the club confide that they would really like to have more male members — “someone with carpentry skills.”

Contact Mary Crow at 549-1674 or Evonne Helwig at 549-8978 for information.