St. Mary's East Kelowna held its annual plant sale on May 9, 2009 with coffee and muffins on site. Our little country church is a designated Heritage Church that was built by local orchardists. Therefore a spring Plant Sale with hardy and beautiful green plants must be the most natural and pragmatic "Outreach" event our church could offer. All the plants were donated and came from the fields and gardens of our "top" planters.

Our top-notch gardeners were there to answer any gardening question. For example: What is the colour of the flower when it blooms? Does this plant like light or shade? Would this plant make a good ground cover? Hundreds of people stopped by to admire and buy plants or just to visit and have coffee and muffins.

Here are some of the comments from the people. "I come every year because the plants I buy here always do well and the prices are so reasonable." "I just needed some trees but the flowering plants look so healthy, I had to buy some of those as well." "I was just walking by with my dog but I need to go home and get my van to take the plants home. Could you please hold some plants for me?" The answer was yes. "What, you have your sale already? I’m from the prairies and we don't generally have plant sales until the May long weekend."

What a terrific way to meet new friends and re-connect with old friends. Because I am a non-gardener with the blackest of thumbs, I could just do gopher duties. But I appreciate talent and hard working people. Our Plant Sale organizer was Anna Stuart and her team of garden experts were: Helen Fosbery, Jane Fitz-Gerald, Kathie Cross, Lynette Stirling, Evelyn Schmaltz, Heide Leven and Ruth Stirling. Our Muffin Lady was Marj Gill.

Oops! I only mentioned the ladies — that's because they did most of the work. I should be fair and report that our handymen Jim Stuart, Don Gill and Gerald Fitz-Gerald assisted the ladies. Our guys set up the plant tables and helped with the plant display. They also set up a cozy coffee nook at the back for the thirsty plant buyers.

Fellowship, education and a smart way to raise funds; in addition, beautifying God's garden, one plant at a time. Way to go you gardeners and helpers!

St. James, Armstrong

Outreach Pancake Breakfast

by Helen Hall

Pancake Outreach — Dana Hall and Lorraine Cummings of the St. James Outreach committee hard at work at our June 21 Pancake Breakfast.

St. James church in Armstrong has held an Outreach Pancake Breakfast monthly for the last ten years or so. This breakfast is attended by a small, but faithful core of parishioners and their extended families. There are people who come from other churches, and even a couple of folks who come regularly from Vernon and they support this project, as they know that all funds raised go out into the community.

Working in community, feeding the hungry, and earning money that will be well used is very rewarding for the Outreach Committee and their supporters. Volunteers provide all supplies, and their time — all money that is brought in is used for various projects.

Some of the projects supported in the past are: the Boys and Girls Club in Armstrong; North Okanagan Youth and Family Services in Vernon; the Tammy Lafleur Street Nurse program; Salmon Arm Women's Shelter, the Good Food Box program; and we financially supported the Diocesan trip to Mexico in 2008. This year we are pleased to send money to the church in Kaslo to go towards their refugee fund.

We earmarked our earnings from our June 21 breakfast, and then decided to match that amount from our reserve funds. The amount we are sending is small in relation to the amount that they need to bring this family to Canada, but we hope that our $326 will inspire other churches to do likewise.