GCA Founders Fund Through the Years

A Therapeutic Garden: Nurturing Plants and Lifting Spirits

March 17, 2022

In 2018, the Kenilworth Garden Club (KGC) in Illinois, was named the recipient of a $30,000 grant from The Garden Club of America’s Founders Fund for the creation of a therapeutic garden at Misericordia, Heart of Mercy. Founded in 1921 and sited on thirty-one acres in Chicago, Misericordia currently serves over 600 children and adults with a wide range of developmental disabilities. The Founders Fund grant, combined with an additional $10,000 donated by KGC and funding from Misericordia, helped to create a 1,700 square foot therapeutic garden with walker/wheelchair accessible paths and raised work spaces that will allow the staff to implement horticultural therapy techniques, gardening activities and vocational training. Craig Bergmann, a local landscape architect, donated his time, design plans, and many plants to the project. 

The therapeutic garden, completed in 2019, replaced what was once an uninviting cement plaza with a beautiful, interactive garden. The project is a continuation of KGC’s involvement with Misericordia which began more than fifteen years ago. Over the years, KGC has also focused on a residential courtyard, planting spring bulbs, and decorating the area during the holidays.

Today, the raised beds offer a variety of plant material. A sensory garden brims with colorful flowering plants. A vegetable patch offers a number of edibles while an aromatic herb garden provides scents for the senses. The esthetically beautiful and inspiring therapeutic garden provides opportunities for interactive activities and educational instruction through its user-friendly and accessible design. In addition, the garden nurtures body, heart, and mind with edible plants for residents’ meals and a natural serenity that feeds the soul.

The Founders Fund was established in 1934 to provide annual monetary awards to civic improvement projects proposed by GCA member clubs. The award initially was endowed in memory of the GCA’s first president, Elizabeth Price Martin (Mrs. J. Willis) of Philadelphia, who served from 1913-20. Generous gifts from clubs and individuals have since augmented the fund.

The first award of $700 was presented in 1936 for an English-language publication of the oldest known American herbal, the 1552 Badianus Manuscript, by Johns Hopkins Press. Since then, 272 Founders Fund winners and runners-up have received more than $1.5 million to save thousands of acres of land and innumerable trees, restore historic landmarks, establish civic plantings, and conduct research and educational projects across the country.