Ithaca Garden Club Hosts Second Annual Family Friendly 5k

Sarah Barrows, Elaine Alexander, and Joyce Putnam fold t-shirts for the 5k race/Photo by Gabriella Baiano

“There is nothing that is more cheerful in spring in Ithaca than a bunch of daffodils flowering. They’re very important for human health and getting people outside,” said William Miller, Professor of Horticulture at Cornell University.

 

130,000 daffodils, planted by the Ithaca Garden Club, bloom across Ithaca’s Cass Park where 500 participants partake in the club’s second annual daffodil dash. The daffodil dash is one of many community events hosted by the Ithaca Garden Club to raise funds for public beautification initiatives across Ithaca.

 

“We’ve had a number of different things, but this was the first time we’ve done a major event which includes a lot of people in the community, all ages and all stages,” said Elaine Alexander, President of the Ithaca Garden Club.

 

The Ithaca Garden Club

 

Founded in 1922 to promote artistic expression, conservation, and to beautify the community, the Ithaca Garden Club is one of the longest running garden clubs in New York State. Alexander said she has always had a passion for the civic beautification missions of garden clubs and has gained both friendship and gardening knowledge from local club projects.

Daffodil trails planted by the waterfront downtown Ithaca/Courtesy William Miller

 

 “With the public projects that we did, I realized that not everybody has the funds or the access to do this sort of beautification,” Alexander said. 

 

The Ithaca Garden Club’s previous projects include a partnership with Healthy Food for All, an organization that provides community supported agriculture shares for low-income families. The two organizations worked together to raise funds to provide shares for women with children under age 5 living below the poverty line. “At first, those of us who lived in Ithaca can’t believe that there are as many women as there are who live with children under the poverty line, so this was really a great project,” Alexander said.

 

According to Alexander, the club was a founding member of the Community Federation of Women’s Organizations that previously owned the Women’s Community building downtown. Today, the downtown building consists of subsidized housing. “When they sold the space, they took the funds for that and formed a foundation. Because the garden club was a legacy member, we still participate in the awarding of grants to programs that benefit women and children,” Alexander said.

 

The club has created gardens at various public spaces throughout Ithaca including the Cayuga Medical Center, Hospicare, the Ithaca Children’s Garden, and the Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes. In addition to landscaping projects, the club takes on annual interior decoration tasks at the Cayuga Medical Center. Alexander said her club put together large wreaths with bells for last year’s décor theme, “let the holiday spirit ring.”

 

The Daffodil Dash

 

Alexander said Professor Miller helped inspire the race through the daffodils with his “amazing bulb planter.” Since 1998, flower bulb research at Cornell has been supported by the Netherlands flower bulb export industry.

Ithaca Garden Club members use Professor Miller's planting machine to grow daffodils/Courtesy William Miller

 

“In 2017 they sent to us a planter that hooks onto a tractor…capable of lifting up a strip of grass about two to three inches deep, dropping bulbs onto the ground, and covering those bulbs up with grass,” Miller said. According to Miller, his planting machine has helped the garden club plant roughly half a million tulips and other bulbs downtown.

 

Shortly after the club’s first planting, the nonprofit became a staple organization benefiting the Ithaca community, helping Ithacans find joy through long Ithaca winters and throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. “There were a couple of spots downtown and all of a sudden there were these strips of crazy color and flowering daffodils. People would walk by and see them, and it was very clear that people really enjoyed this,” Miller said. “Children love to see them, people are walking their dogs and kids are riding their bikes on the trails, and it’s great.”

 

Donations from this year’s daffodil dash contribute to the beautification of Ithaca and the club’s current project to grow daffodils, starting at the waterfront trail, expanding to public parks and spaces throughout Ithaca. “We had a very generous donation from the Triad Foundation, both last year and this year, that covered the costs of the event so that any money we raised went directly towards the purchase of bulbs,” Alexander said. She hopes community members can come together for the daffodil dash to “enjoy the daffodils and enjoy the day, and we will have a great time all working together to make that happen.”