Special to the Times
In June, 2023, the Beacon Hill Garden Club gave away $104,250 to 19 horticultural and environmental organizations in and around Boston.
Recipients ranged from the Boston Medical Center Rooftop Garden, which grows fresh food for its cafeterias, patients and needy families, and the City of Boston greenhouses, which grow the plants in the Boston Public Garden and other parks, to the Esplanade Association, the private group that assists the Department of Conservation and Recreation in maintaining that long riverside park. Grants varied from $1,000 to $6,000.
The funds were raised by two events, the May 18th Tour of the Hidden Gardens of Beacon Hill and the Soirée, held the evening before the tour. The tour of members’ gardens has been offered every year since 1929 with only three exceptions – one during wartime in the 1940s and two during the recent pandemic. It attracts visitors from all over New England. This year the number of tickets was limited to 1,800.
The sixth annual Soirée attracted a sold-out crowd for refreshments and music in the King’s Chapel Parish House garden. Once again, the lead sponsor for the event was Fiduciary Trust. Other sponsors were Beacon Hill Books and Café, F.H. Perry Construction, LandVest, Upstairs Downstairs Home, Carpenter & MacNeille, C.H. Newton Builders, The Catered Affair, J. McLaughlin and Sara Campbell.