It’s taken a bit of time to wrap my mind around what to say and how to say it when it comes to remembering this year’s Plant Pride, which took place this past weekend on Saturday, July 15. If you’re not familiar with this (now) signature event, Plant Pride is a celebration of the opening of the Botany Shop, a celebration where we do our best to champion and amplify all the ways we grow together. In addition to being a perfectly beautiful day, I keep coming back to the idea and the feeling of love, because there was a lot of love in the Near Northwest Neighborhood on Saturday. You can check out all the amazing photos by Emily Violet Photography in our gallery, linked here.
We spent the day surrounded by and enmeshed within community – a safe, warm, welcoming, creative, beautiful, and diverse place. We welcomed double the number of vendors compared to last year and ditto for the number of guests. As I was catching up on our social media that night, I kept seeing messages of love, of thanks, and perhaps most meaningful – messages of connection.
From the beginning, Botany has been grounded in the idea that plants remind us we’re connected, and therefore help us to connect. This belief is embedded at the core of everything we do. It’s why we’ve made it our mission to empower more people to grow more plants in more places, because the vibe of Plant Pride should be every day, year-round. The simple fact we’ve heard more stories about connection – to old friends, new friends, neighbors, and coworkers (outside of work) – feels like both validation and motivation to continue forward. We treasure the time, energy and love you shared with us last weekend, and we’re banking it to help push us onward to whatever may come next.
This being our second Plant Pride, I was able to breath and be present a bit more easily than I was last year. Being in the moment felt good. With so many stressful and anxious things happening in the world right now, so many of them feeling far out of our control, we were able to craft an event and an invitation that resonated with a wide and wonderful swath of our community. This feels… well, empowering. I’m coming away from this moment filled with more passion and energy and drive than before, because it feels like our idea that plants can create safe spaces that allow us to connect with other people is ringing loud and true today.
If it’s possible, we’ve also fallen more deeply in love with South Bend than ever before. This is home. Every day when we open our doors we’re grateful to bring a little beauty to our corner of the city, and you brought a lot of beauty and love with you on Saturday!
Thank you, sincerely, for sharing your love with us. Your love for creativity, community, beauty, and diversity. Decisions are made by those who show up. If you joined us last weekend, thank you. You made a direct investment in and endorsement of the community you want to live in. Thanks to you, Plant Pride 2024 is already beginning to gel (Save the date for July 20, by the way), and we have more ideas cooking as we speak.
Just a few weeks ago, I reached out and encouraged you to love on all local businesses right now after a slower than slow June. At Plant Pride, everyone – from our food vendors to community partners, neighborhood shops, and local makers, and all of us here at Botany – felt your love, loud and clear. Thank you, a million times over.
I’ll never get tired of saying this: it takes a village, and we’re grateful you’re ours.
With Gratitude,
Ben | Botany Founder + CEO
P.S. To everyone who worked hard behind the scenes and on the front lines to make Plant Pride a success – our incredible Botany team – a special thanks to you all. It helps when you cook with the right ingredients. Collectively this passionate team makes magic happen every day, and we’d be nothing without them. If you happen to know one of them personally, please give them a big hug and another pat on the back for a job very, very well done.
P.P.S. A special thank you to our Botany Backers who stopped by on Saturday, and for those who just joined! Your financial support helps make events like Plant Pride possible, pure and simple. You help us keep events like this one free, growing, and thriving. You allow us to dream, and you allow us to keep moving forward. We appreciate each of you.
If you’re a Backer and weren’t able to make it to the event, you’re welcome to swing by the Shop to pick up your complimentary swag bag with a Petrichor candle and Botany bath soak, plus your complimentary Botany T-shirt, any time we’re open before July 30. And, we still have ten extra swag bags available! If you attended Plant Pride and want to continue supporting our work at Botany, and if you become a Backer before July 30, there’s a Botany swag bag with your name on it 😉.