For those who think relationships based on beauty never last, Mossyrock Garden Club begs to differ.
After sticking together for 75 years, garden club members are still creating and nurturing all things beautiful in their lives and community.
The group first organized July 8, 1932, with a mission "to stimulate a love for and better knowledge of gardening," and to "encourage home owners to beautify their homes with shrubs, trees, flowers and bulbs."
Now several decades later, current members concentrate their efforts on aiding, enriching and beautifying their community.
Watering the Spirit
The garden club's most recent service project occurred in May, when the ladies continued their annual tradition of delivering May Day baskets of flower arrangements to elderly and shut-in citizens of Mossyrock.
Brenda Wood, a former garden club president and Master Gardener, said this springtime service stems from the May Day tradition of leaving flowers on friends and loved one's doorsteps. "It takes these men and women from older generations down memory lane," said Barbara Crask, garden club president. Laverne Clapp, a club matriarch, added, "It gives you a very warm feeling. (With the baskets) you show you are thinking about one person."
Bringing the Sunshine
Aside from bringing beauty inside to shut-in members of the community, the Mossyrock Garden Club also tends to many outdoor beautification projects they've begun over the years. The ladies said they typically gather twice a month to help maintain the city park by weeding, planting more trees and in the past have even added memorial benches.
Over the years, projects have ranged from planting 110 trees around the city, to landscaping grounds around City Hall and the high school, and tending to the cemetery until the city of Mossyrock could pay someone for upkeep.
The group is also responsible for raising money and purchasing the hanging baskets of assorted flowers put up along Mossyrock streets in early June.
Club members agreed their gardening and overall beautification efforts benefit the entire community in an irreplaceable way. Another long-standing member, Dolores Sjogren, explaining their work, said, it "gives pride in the city. It makes you feel good to do something that people will notice and appreciate."
Smith added that many of their projects such as hanging baskets have become community traditions, "and it's good to keep that tradition going."
Nurturing the Future
Through their main fund-raiser, Look-A-Rama, Mossyrock Garden Club raises money for scholarships awarded every year to high school seniors. Last year their Christmas bazaar for area children brought in enough money to give away five $1,500 scholarships, the most ever awarded by the club.
Look-A-Rama sets up shop at the Grange community center during the first week of December, and features gift and holiday food items made by local artisans or organizations. School children are bused in to go through the store to buy gifts for their families and enjoy games and activities.
Mossyrock Garden Club sells greenery and floral arrangements at Look-A-Rama, and members say the small holiday greenery arrangements are always popular items. "All the children going into the greenery room are fascinated," said Coral Smith, another garden club member. "The garden club members will show the children how to put together the small arrangements, and the kids get some hands-on time working with the greenery."
The Mossyrock Garden Club will celebrate their diamond anniversary in conjunction with next December's Look-A-Rama, which will be in its 50th year.
Meredith Donnelly lives in Morton. She can be reached by e-mail at meredithud@gmail.com.
