Celebratins Service and Commitment
Akron Garden Club, the city’s first garden club, was founded by Gertrude Penfield Seiberling in 1924 at her home, Stan Hywet Hall, for “the advancement of gardening and a stimulation of interest in the preservation and enhancement of the natural beauties of Akron and vicinity.” The club was a charter member of the Garden Club of Ohio in 1927 and instrumental in the founding of the Garden Forum of Greater Akron in 1932. Akron Garden Club was invited to join The Garden Club of America in 1945.
Akron Garden Club members’ unique commitment to civic engagement since 1924 has benefited the local community and beyond in numerous ways. A few examples include:
• Funding the purchase and installation of more than 16,000 plants and trees to enhance local neighborhoods and parks
• Rescuing some 160,000 wildflowers and native plants for donation to numerous Ohio organizations and historic sites, including the Heritage Garden at the Ohio Governor’s Residence
• Bringing national recognition to 10 distinguished individuals, organizations, and plants by proposing them for national medals awarded by The Garden Club of America, including most recently Ohio Sea Grant and The Ohio State University’s
Stone Lab in 2023
• Helping to establish Scenic Ohio in 1996
• Volunteering some 7,000+ hours over 60+ years to maintain the English Garden designed by Ellen Biddle Shipman at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, a national historic landmark
• Establishing an extensive educational signage program at The Ohio State University’s Secrest Arboretum
• For a quarter century, helping to landscape the Schumacher Cascade Mills Site and the Mustill Store Museum along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail
• Providing nearly $740,000 in grants in support of organizations serving a diverse range of local communities to help stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening and to restore, improve, and protect the quality of the environment
Akron Garden Club commemorated its 100th anniversary with a nearly $100,000 legacy gift to the Akron community—the cultivation, installation, and maintenance of a large native plant garden in Summit Metro Parks’ Cascade Valley Metro
Park, beautifying its Valley View Area along the Cuyahoga River.
Photo by Joe Levack
