In June the Beacon Hill Garden Club gave away nearly $200,000 to 33 Boston-area horticultural and environmental organizations.
Highlights in the club’s annual grants were the Boston Bridge Charter School’s Jens’ Garden, with a $5,000 grant. The same amount went to the Boston Medical Center’s rooftop garden. Other recipients include the Boston Food Forest Coalition, Charles River Watershed and the City of Boston’s greenhouses. That donation allowed that agency to buy an AutoFog sprayer. Ticket purchases at the garden club’s 2024 Tour of the Hidden Gardens and its accompanying Soirée in May enabled the club to fund these grants.
Larger grants went to five other organizations, including the Esplanade Association, which received the unusually specific sum of $31,079.06 for its Welcome Garden. Money for the larger grants comes from the club’s Seed Fund, which accumulates over a period of a few years by the club reserving ten percent of the money raised through its annual spring activities to be saved for grants of a larger amount than the typical annual grants.