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By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
There’s a lot one can accomplish in 40 years. In that time, a person can dry flowers and decorate an eight-foot tree with them for the library. Perhaps someone would create a cookbook entitled “Thyme Flies” in those four decades. Or maybe a person could use that time to educate children on gardening.
The Sherborn Garden Club looked back on all of those achievements and more as they celebrated their fortieth anniversary at the Sherborn Community Center on May 8.
“For a little town like Sherborn… the love and passion,” said Vicki Ten Eick, nearly at a loss for word. “I’ve only been a member for a few years, but you can feel it. And for these women who started it 40 years ago to still be so passionate about gardening… It’s something special.”
For their ruby anniversary, many members who have moved away from Sherborn and several of the club’s founding members, including Margo Powicki, Phyllis Braun, and Paula Levine, returned to town for the celebration.
The Sherborn Garden Club first came into existence when, in 1977, a woman named Jane Pockel placed a notice in the newspaper that she wanted to form a group to work on beautifying the town. Needless to say, many people responded to the notice.
“We were from a different generation, but we all blended together very nicely,” said Margo Powicki, one of the founding members and a past president. She and some of the other founders were in their 30s when they decided to gather the group of women together, including more seasoned gardeners, and create the Sherborn Garden Club.
“It was just a wonderful thing to have the opportunity to work with women of all ages to make Sherborn a better place to live,” she added.
Several of the members created a timeline on the stage in the Community Center, which chronicled all of the activities and programs the Sherborn Garden Club has done in the past four decades. It even included photos and newspaper clippings from their first years as a group.
“We all stay in the group, and even though we’re all so busy, we make the time to do things that bring us comfort or let us use our creativity,” Corinne Whitaker, the club’s vice president. “I love seeing what the older generation brings to the club and learning from them, because they’ve got so many skills and ideas they share with us.”
With the group already having planned so much for the 2018-2019 year, including Sherborn In Bloom, their annual bulb sale, it’s clear that the Sherborn Garden Club will not be slowing down after 40 successful years.
