Celebrate with the Botanical Garden
Join the Sawtooth Botanical Garden for their annual fundraiser, “Une Fête Dans le Jardin – A Soiree in the Garden.” The event will be held Friday, Aug. 12 at 5:30 p.m. at the Sawtooth Botanical Garden.
This year celebrates the 21st anniversary of the Sawtooth Botanical Garden, a sanctuary for nature lovers and botanists alike.
“We are a resource in the community people look to for plant knowledge, inspiration, whether it be personal or for a group, ideas to bring home to your own garden and for connecting people to nature,” Kat Vanden Heuvel, executive director, explained.
The Garden sees about 14,000 visitors a year through educational programs like Bug Zoo, day-to-day visitors, outreach programs such as Growing Great Minds, ongoing adult workshops and more.
“With that amount of visitorship, we have a lot of work to do to maintain our grounds and facilities, plus developing additional programing for the Garden,” Vanden Heuvel said.
Funds raised from this gala event will go directly toward maintaining the Garden grounds and expanding programming.
“This year’s theme was inspired by the Jardin des Plantes in France, which is one of the most amazing gardens out there,” Vanden Heuvel said. “We have this beautiful garden setting; why pretend we are anything else? But we wanted to give it a special flair with the decorations. You’ll see some purples, representative of the lavenders you would see in France, and whites. The colors compliment what we have blooming in the garden perfectly.”
The event includes cocktails, dinner, dancing and a silent auction. The Wood River Sustainability Center will be catering the evening.
“Ali Long helped purchase the food for the event so that it could be locally sourced, because that was something that was really important to us,” Vanden Heuvel said. “Because we are a botanical garden we want to support things that are going on in the plant world, which includes food plants!”
Dale and Peggy Bates will lead a group-dancing lesson, which packed the floor at last year’s event, and The Kim Stocking Band will play for attendees into the evening. Items in the silent auction include a ski pass, a day at the Double R Ranch in Picabo, beautiful artwork, restaurant gift cards and more.
The Sawtooth Botanical Garden wishes to thank its sponsors Paul and Laurie Ahern, Cold Springs Crossing, Susan Flynt, Ali Long, D.L. Evans Bank and Magic Lantern Cinemas for helping put this event together.
“Susan Flynt is our gala chair, and she and our committee are lifesavers,” Vanden Heuvel said. “When I see everyone coming to the gala, it’s like they are all coming to celebrate the Garden and it’s really fun to see all the friendly, smiling faces at the event.”
Tickets for “Une Fête Dans le Jardin – A Soiree in the Garden” are $125/person or $1,000/per table of eight. Seating is limited. To reserve a seat for this not-to-be-missed evening of celebration and inspiration, contact SBG Executive Director Kat Vanden Heuvel at kat@sbgarden.org or call (208) 726-9358.