Southern Gardens Project - April 2006
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived are the moments
when you have done things in the spirit of love.Henry Drummond
April is shaping up to be a whirlwind month for our Restoring Roses to Southern Gardens Project. David and I will be leaving on the 10th and heading first to New Orleans. We will be staying with a lovely lady, that I met by phone this past week. ARS forwarded an e-mail they had received from her asking for help in the propagation of old roses. In her letter she states:
My name is Sharon Henry Leidenheimer. I live in the New Orleans area and started a group called "Friends of New Orleans." We are dedicated to "Growing New Orleans, yard by yard," and we clean the front yards of homes devastated by Katrina from the front door to clearing out the muck in the gutters. We want to bring neighborhoods back, and revive New Orleans. I also want to present each family with an old rose when they move back into their homes. With that in mind, and with almost 100% of the roses in New Orleans lost to the storm, I am asking people all over the country to help me achieve my goal. We have several hundred thousand homes that were inundated with those nasty waters. The local members of rose societies lost all their stock, and in a majority of cases, can't even live in their homes. They are in no position to help with this project. I have enlisted the help of the rose program in the New Orleans Botanical Garden. They too are in the process of rebuilding and restocking. They don't even have green houses yet. So we need people in other parts of the country to help us with the propagation of old roses. Can you help us? My project's organizational scope is explained in the attachment. It seems like an overwhelming task to bring this city back, but we will accomplish that yard by yard. And these yards need roses!
I will be approaching corporate sponsors during the next two weeks in an effort to procure the funds needed to have 200 Old Garden Roses dropped shipped into New Orleans to meet us when we arrive. A 100 member volunteer force is in place and they are ready and willing to assist us in delivering the roses, and the packets of encouraging letters to homeowners who are attempting to restore their gardens and their lives. If you know anyone interested if helping with the purchase of these roses, please give me a call.
In Mobile, Alabama, Lake Charles, Louisiana, St. Tammany West, Louisiana we will be present at the new home dedication services for Habitat for Humanity. We will be giving the homeowners their beautiful rose and letters of love, and lots of hugs as we represent the Riverside Rose Society and its generous hearted membership to our fellow Americans in the South. I wish we could all be there together.
ARS President Marilyn Wellan has offered her support in several strategic areas, she wrote these words in her e-mail:
ARS will support this project as a President's initiative, and we can accomplish most of the requests that Lee Stevens put forward in her proposal:
1: As I said earlier, I will set aside time for the presentation of the program during the ARS Membership Meeting at Seattle. We can further involve local societies by including the story in the Rose Leader, through e-mail messages to society presidents, and through a magazine article.
2: I am sure Beth will allow a story about the program, and I can make it the subject of the President's Page.
3: I will be happy to ask District Directors to publish information about the program in their bulletins and on their websites.
