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The Grow Campaign: Cultivating Connections, Community, and Conservation
In the heart of every garden lies the potential for growth, not just of plants but of communities and relationships. The Grow campaign is designed to highlight this potential through a trio of promotional pillars: Community Outreach, Digital Engagement, and On-Site Events. At its core, the campaign aims to foster a deeper connection between the garden center and the communities we serve, using innovative strategies to promote sustainability, education, and communal well-being.
The Seed of Community Outreach
Community Outreach, one part of the three pillars within the Grow campaign, embodies the commitment of IGCs to nurturing neighborhoods through tangible acts of engagement and support. Through this initiative, we celebrate the myriad ways garden centers contribute to their communities, beyond the borders of their businesses.
Lakeview Nurseries is a good example of this with initiatives like The Greenthumb Project, in partnership with the Lunenburg High School Greenhouse Program, which cultivates the next generation of horticulturists. Their support for the Lunenburg Pollinator Habitat further exemplifies a dedication to environmental stewardship, ensuring a greener, more biodiverse future.
Gilberties Farmers Market: A Gathering Place for Growth
Gilberties Farmers Market, hosted in the greenhouses of a 102-year-old family business, serves as a vibrant hub for the community. It’s a place where connections bloom alongside the flora, fostering relationships and supporting causes like the Huneebee Project. Here, community and sustainability intertwine, with events like herb gathering for fundraising highlighting the integral role of garden centers in supporting local endeavors and creating spaces for connection and growth.
Similarly, the Gilberties Farmers Market illustrates the vibrant community spirit fostered within the greenhouses of a century-old family business. Hosting the Westport Farmers Market, this initiative emphasizes the importance of community gatherings, connecting people over shared interests in sustainability and local produce.
Blossoming Digital Engagement
At the heart of the Grow campaign’s innovative approach is a dedicated app, designed to showcase these stories of community engagement and environmental conservation. This digital platform serves not just as a repository of inspiring tales but as an interactive space where customers and community members can engage with and contribute to these narratives. With Supertunia Summer the app creates unique promo codes that allow shoppers to enter into a contest where they submit photos of their Supertunias looking super in their hanging baskets, container gardens and landscape plantings. It also provides an avenue to supply timely tips right to these contestants with information and guidance to help their Supertunias become Super Super!
The app amplifies the reach of our community outreach efforts, ensuring that the seeds of goodwill planted by initiatives like those at Lakeview Nurseries and the Gilberties Farmers Market bloom into widespread awareness and appreciation.
The Fruits of On-Site Events
Complementing our digital and community outreach efforts are the on-site events like Tomatofest, which bring the community together in celebration of gardening, local produce, and sustainability. These events serve as a physical manifestation of the Grow campaign’s goals, creating spaces for learning, sharing, and connecting over shared passions for gardening and conservation.
Weaving Together the Stems of Promotion
The integration of the Grow campaign’s three pillars—Community Outreach, Digital Engagement through Supertunia Summer, and On-Site Events like Tomatofest—into a unified promotional strategy offers garden centers a dynamic framework for connecting with their communities. By featuring stories of community engagement on the app and transforming them into promotional signs within the garden centers, we not only celebrate these initiatives but also inspire our customers.
A Garden of Community and Growth
The Grow campaign represents a holistic approach to fostering community connections, environmental conservation, and sustainable growth. By championing initiatives that contribute to the well-being of our communities and our planet, garden centers can strengthen their role as essential, community-focused entities within the green industry, nurturing not just plants, but the very fabric of our neighborhoods.
