Dear Santa,
Our Richmond Garden Club members have been very good this year. There has been so much giving back to the community with our ongoing work in the gardens in the most beautiful park in Richmond, Paulik Park.
We gave back with healing and meditative gardens at the Peace Labyrinth at St. Albans Church. Our little roof top urban farm at the Richmond Cultural Centre provided ongoing education to children and adults alike. We planted butterfly gardens in our gardens alongside the Richmond Butterflyway Rangers.
We have become stewards of our environment by teaching our garden skills at the Richmond Public Library.
For this Christmas, our list is not long but is essential to help us continue our work:
Help us to engage young people to continue working in the field of horticulture, to become garden designers, protectors of our environment and help beautify our community;
Help us to get our community to care about their neighbourhoods and neighbours by planting and caring for trees and flowers, picking up garbage on their boulevards and streets;
Get rid of the chafer beetle. Increase the number of trees in Richmond. We love how they give back to us with increased oxygen, cooling systems for our homes in the summer and beautiful colour all year round;
Help us teach people to grow their own food, no matter how big or small their yard. Help us to teach people to use organic fertilizers and no pesticides for healthy living;
Oh yes, and we would each love to have some lovely pruning shears for all 160 garden club members!
We know, Santa, that you care very much for our environment because you travel around the world and see some places where the people struggle to stay warm and find food.
We are very blessed to live in Canada and our beautiful city of Richmond, but we know that we have to think of sustaining our environment so that our children can continue to enjoy our magnificent gardens in places like Paulik Park, continue to reap the harvests of giant blueberries and local farm produce.
Merry Christmas to Mrs Claus, your elves and reindeer, Santa.
Lynda Pasacreta is the current president of the Richmond Garden Club
For more information and upcoming meetings visit richmondgardenclub.ca.
