April 2016
The Power of Pink By Abby (Kleckler) McGarry

Getting hundreds of people into the garden center while supporting a good cause seems like a win-win. Here are three snapshots of successful campaigns inspired by Spring Meadow Nursery's Pink Days/Invincibelle Spirit hydrangea campaign. Each garden center makes the fundraisers their own, getting people excited about everything from hanging baskets to paintings throughout the year.

GreenScapes Garden Center & Landscape Co., Whitesboro, New York

At GreenScapes Garden Center & Landscape Co., the annual breast cancer research fundraiser has evolved over the years.

For the past four years, the event has taken place around the first weekend of October, with a VIPink Night kickoff on Friday and other festivities Saturday and Sunday.

“When we did it the first year, it was the weekend after Memorial Day, but we’re still getting trucks in and people are still gung- ho about spring,” says Mollie Wadsworth, marketing manager at GreenScapes. “So October gets people in here when maybe we’re not quite as busy, and we could use a few more sales.”

The Party

“On Friday night, we clear all the benches out of our greenhouse, and set up some tables,” Wadsworth says. “I had a winery, a brewery and a distillery come in and offer samples. Then we had a whole bunch of food donated from a local pizzeria, we had a band play, and we got the lights going.”

More than 100 people attended VIPink Night last year, some familiar faces and some not-so-familiar ones.

“Last year and the year before we had a lot of people that I’ve never seen before, but they came and maybe we saw them the next week or month shopping in the garden center,” Wadsworth says. “We definitely want to drive people to the garden center.”

Wadsworth uses primarily social media to promote the event, since this allows people to quickly RSVP and buy tickets all online.

Community partnerships are also key to the success of the event. Many local businesses donate baskets for a raffle.

“You could spend the 25 bucks to eat and drink and just have a good time, but everyone seems to buy at least $10 or $15 worth of raffle tickets on top of that,” Wadsworth says. “All the baskets and food and drink samples are donated, so it works really well for our fundraising total.”

One of the donations Wadsworth says she really appreciated last year was that of photography.

“We had three photographers volunteer to take pictures of the whole event, and they sent me all their pictures and said I could use them however I want,” she says. “I didn’t have to worry about trying to get photos, and we have really good documentation from three different points of view.”

Keeping it Fresh

Each year GreenScapes does a little something different. Last year, Wadsworth had the owner of a local company, Arts & Carafes, join in on the fun.

“We had tables set up with easels, and he did a step-by-step painting,” Wadsworth says. “We had 28 people, and we painted pink hydrangeas and sampled wine from a local winery.”

A new patio display area in the garden center also acted as the perfect location for another new event feature: a bonfire.

Throughout the weekend, GreenScapes continues the raffle and puts everything pink on sale.

“We have a lot of people that are just coming in to shop, and maybe didn’t know anything about it and buy raffle tickets,” Wadsworth says. “Or we have people coming in to get raffle tickets and end up shopping, which is the end goal.”

GreenScapes donates all of the proceeds from the event and, inspired by local breast cancer survivors, has decided to make a local and national impact.

“We’ve split [money raised] between BCRF [Breast Cancer Research Foundation], a local cancer center, and last year and the year before we donated some money to a friend that had cancer,” Wadsworth says. “What we’re going to try to do each year is pick a local family or a person that’s affected by it, and just try to give them a little something extra.”