The Garden Club of America
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Founded in 1913, The Garden Club of America (www.gcamerica.org) is a volunteer non-profit 501 (c)3 comprised of 201 clubs and over 18,000 members. The headquarters for the organization is in New York 14 East 60th Street , New York, New York 10022.
The purpose of The Garden Club of America is to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening; to share the advantages of association by means of educational meetings, conferences, correspondence and publications; and to restore, improve and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic improvement. The Garden Club of America writes annual position papers on ten public policy issues about conservation: Clean Water, Climate Change Action, National Parks, National Public Lands, Native Plants, Oceans, Sustainable Agriculture, Seed Diversity and Food Security, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Waste Management.
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The Tuckahoe Garden Club of Westhampton joined The Garden Club of America in 1952. There are 12 Zones within our organization. Zone VII is our zone , which includes the states of Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky. The benefits for our club to belong to the GCA are numerous including club support for Presidents and new members, and for our committee heads for Horticulture, Conservation, Flower Shows and more. There are numerous opportunities to attend GCA functions such as the following: Annual Meeting, Zone Meetings, the Shirley Meneice Horticulture Conference, National Affairs and Legislation Conference, and a Conservation Study Conference. Other benefits for our membership are the six publications we receive on various topics such as conservation or photography.
The GCA benefits the community at large by granting 28 merit-based scholarships, as well as bestowing conservation awards such as the Founders Fund Project awards (https://www.gcamerica.org/gca-awards-founders-fund), and sponsors over 55 Partners for Plants Projects, helping to energize volunteers across the country to restore native habitats and eliminate invasive plants. Additionally, GCA clubs sponsored over 66 Flower Shows last year across the country. Over the years, GCA members have documented over 4800 gardens to date for the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens (http://gardens.si.edu/collections-research/aag.html). And more than six Restoration Initiative grants have been given to clubs over the past two years to help repair gardens after natural disasters.
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