GCA Grants 

Founders Fund: The GCA awards a total of $60,000 annually to three projects proposed by local clubs and selected by the committee and presented for a vote by all GCA club members.

At the Annual Meeting of the Garden Club of America, the 2024 winner was announced. The $40,000 winning grant was awarded to Replanting Indigenous and Historic Northeastern Species to create an Edible Plant Learning Center at the Jay Estate in Rye, New York.  Proposed by The Little Garden Club of Rye.  The grant will support the study of native vegetation in this dedicated outdoor classroom for thousands of visitors throughout the NY/NJ/CT area. The program will focus on the pivotal role that native plants - pawpaws, elderberry, blueberry - have played in healthy, sustainable human and wildlife communities over time as well as today.  Two additional grants of $10,000 each have been awarded to Conserving Natives! The Restoration of an Orchid Learning Center and Green Space becomes Caring Space: Church Health Community Garden.

The first Founders Fund award of $700 was presented in 1936.  Since then, two-hundred seventy-two Founders Fund winners and runners-up have received more than $1.5 million to conserve land, to restore historic landmarks, to establish civic plantings, and to conduct research and educational projects across the country.

GCW proposed the DCH Urban Farm for this award and the Urban Farm was recognized as a national and regional model of success in urban agriculture, receiving this Garden Club of America Award in 2010. The E. D. Robinson Urban Farm at 12th & Brandywine was founded in 2009. Once a vacant lot in an area dominated by corner stores, the farm provides residents with fresh fruits and vegetables and a place to grow independently as well. Consisting of 600 sq. ft. of community garden space and 1,400 sq. ft. of commercial growing space, the E. D. Robinson Urban Farm has also been recognized as a national and regional model of success in urban agriculture by the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society’s Community Greening Award in 2012. DCH staff has also been nationally honored for their dedication and leadership in this growing movement.

MORE ABOUT THE FOUNDERS FUND AWARD

For eighty-three years, The Garden Club of America has awarded Founders Fund grants to projects designed to restore, improve, and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic improvement. Interestingly, both the first award, given  in 1936, and the most recent, given in 2020, have honored human health initiatives directly related to the earth.

The Founders Fund was established in 1934 in memory of the GCA’s first president, Elizabeth Price Martin. The first winner was the Amateur Gardeners Club of Baltimore, Maryland, who received $700 to assist in the printing of an English version of The Badianus Manuscript: An Aztec Herbal, 1552. The manuscript is one of the earliest known treatises on Mexican medicinal plants and native Aztec herbal remedies produced in the Americas. Fifteen hundred copies were published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, many of which can be found in libraries and medical schools around the country today.

Since its founding in 1934, ninety Founders Fund winners and runners-up have received more than $1.5 million to save thousands of acres of land and innumerable trees, to restore historic landmarks, to establish civic plantings, and to conduct research and educational projects across the country. While the amount of the award may have changed from $700 to $40,000 (with two $10,000 runner-up grants), the intent remains the same.

Read more about the Award in A Centennial Commemoration: In Celebration of the Founders Fund, which chronicles 78 years of the Award, and was completed in commemoration of The Garden Club of America's Centennial Celebration in 2013. The origins of this book began in 1979 when the first written history of the Award was compiled.

THE COMMON GROUND COLLABORATIVE GRANTS were created to help clubs build long-term relationships with diverse community groups to develop, improve and maintain public land and programs. Five grants of $10,000 are awarded annually.

THE HULL AWARD The GCA celebrates the common-sense approach to environmental awareness of Elizabeth Abernathy Hull (1900–1996), by honoring educators who connect children under 16 years of age with horticulture and the environment; and inspire appreciation for the beauty and fragility of the planet. Every year, winners receive a $1,000 prize.

PARTNERS FOR PLANTS The purpose of Partners for Plants is to facilitate hands-on projects between local GCA clubs and land managers on federal, state, local, and other significant public lands.

RESTORATION INITIATIVE Grants are designed to help clubs and their local community rebuild public spaces devastated by a weather related natural disasters.  Six $10,000 grants are awarded annually to approved applicants.