Village Castle Pines Garden Club planting hope
Information provided by the Village Castle Pines Garden Club; photo by Terri Wiebold
Pictured left to right: Pam Kelly, Betsy Ciccotello, representative from Help & Hope Center, Lisa Marquardt, Carol McCraw, Carol Kingsley and Wanda Ford; Kneeling left to right: Leslie Percival and Jane Niederbrach.
The Village Castle Pines Garden Club (Club) helped collect toiletries for the Help & Hope Center in Castle Rock last month, organizing a “drive up, drop off” event in The Village at Castle Pines shops. In only three hours on a Saturday morning, the Club collected 1,128 pounds of toiletries and cash donations of $870.
Jane Niederbrach, president of the Village Castle Pines Garden Club said, “We are thrilled to be able to support the Help & Hope Center during this time of increased need. Thanks to our great team of volunteers, we were able to devise a way to conduct this event while still conforming to appropriate social distancing and other personal protective guidelines – a bit of an added challenge – but absolutely consistent with the Club’s objective of community service.”
Requests for assistance, as well as the number of new clients at the Help & Hope Center, have increased dramatically over the past year. The Help & Hope Center has been at the mercy of a variety of factors – grocery store shortages have almost eliminated regular donations; stays on rent increases and utility payments are coming to an end, leaving many in deeper debt as a result; and extra unemployment benefits are ending. The Center provides both in-kind (food, toiletries etc.) and financial assistance, and their resources are stretched extremely thin to meet the community’s needs.
The Club has three primary areas of activity: supporting the Help & Hope Center and Crisis Center; maintaining the Serenity Garden in The Village and the Tweet Kimball Memorial Garden at Cherokee Ranch & Castle; and encouraging friendships to bloom in The Village.
To learn more about the Village Castle Pines Garden Club, visit www.vcpgc.org.
