Peachland has a new fundraising idea and it involves beautiful flowers.
During the regular meeting on March 9, the district’s council approved donating canna lilies to societies for fundraising campaigns.
Canna lilies are large tropical and subtropical plants, but some varieties have been developed in temperate climates. Cannas are rich in starch, while their stems and leaves can be used as animal fodder.
Sometimes, the plant’s seeds are used as beads in jewelry-making.
The district’s community services director Cheryl Wiebe said Peachland’s parks staff have been collecting seeds and cultivating the plant.
Wiebe said this year, staff were able to propagate three to four bulbs per plant. There are now so many canna lilies in Peachland that the district doesn’t have the capacity to accommodate all of them.
This was why Wiebe proposed using them in a fundraising effort.
“It would create a unique fundraising opportunity for a society to sell them for $10 to $15 a pot,” director of community services Cheryl Wiebe said.
“And we do figure, we’re going to have about 300 plants this year in excess.”
Wiebe said she’s spoken with the Historic School Accessible Plaza Society and they will be able to accommodate the plant bulbs at the visitor centre.
She added that if this year’s pilot run of the fundraiser is successful, it opens up the opportunity for the district to keep donating canna lily bulbs to other organizations for their fundraisers.
Councillors Terry Condon and Keith Fielding didn’t vote to approve the donation, citing a conflict of interest as they are both directors at the society.
Even without the two councillors’ votes, the motion still passed, which means the plants will be donated to the society for them to sell for a fundraising campaign.
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