Longboat Key Garden Club forges on

Though the Longboat Key Garden Club hasn’t been able to stop and actually smell the roses, members have continued on with their flowery programming through Zoom as the pandemic has worn on. 

This time of year would normally mark the start of the club’s big three fundraising events: the Taste of the Keys and Fashion Show, Home Tour and Dinner and a Movie. Those will go on, but significantly differently. First up is the Taste of the Keys, which will continue without a fashion show. Organizers Nancy McLean and Lyn Haycock hired a videographer to film cooking demostrations of the 12 local restaurants featured in past years of the event. The videos and grocery lists will be available to those who donate. So far, they’ve filmed two and are working to finalize the dates.

“You just get so hungry, watching what they do,” McLean said. “They've been great about suggesting things on onion cutting a different way, or how you make risotto ... Great tips like that.”

In addition to the cooking demos, the videographer is hosting interviews with each cook, creating an opportunity to dive deeper than attendees normally would in a massive ballroom. 

“We were really digging into the chef Eric, at Tommy Bahama, and it turned to, ‘How did you become a chef?'" McLean said. "And he was an aeronautical engineer for seven years out in California, and decided that just really wasn't what it was, so then he went to culinary school.”

Taste of the Keys is just the first Garden Club event to usher in the new mode of gathering and fundraising. The annual home tour will go on in much the same way as Taste of the Keys, with videos instead of physical tours. 

“COVID is not as strong as a 44-year historic run of an event, so we're just innovating and keeping on with that,” Phillips said. “But it will be pushed (to) April, just because we want our events spaced out.”

The virtual aspect, which will feature a longer run of guided tour videos of the homes, is actually widening the possibilities of homes to feature. This year will include the penthouse in the gated community of Positano on Longboat Key. Years before, the homeowners had offered their home as a stop on the tour, but the community association didn’t want hundreds of people coming through their gates. 

“Everybody just stretched their imagination, and their comfort level ... on the technology, and has been so inspiring to be part of this group of women who are so determined to sustain the club, and sustain our fundraising,” Phillips said. 

Raising money for scholarships and the organizations they support, such as Mote and Selby Gardens, is still at the forefront of their goals. Haycock said it’s important to keep fundraising for organizations whose income has been crippled by the pandemic. 

“Our fundraising this year, even though it kind of looked dismal, at first, last March, when we had to cancel Dinner and a Movie, and we had to cancel our annual meeting … we had to get our legs back under us and our determination for success just overruled every obstacle we had. So I'm enthusiastic about 2021,” Phillips said.  

Dinner and a Movie was the first Garden Club event to be canceled due to COVID-19, and now Phillips plans on having it be the first in-person event back after the pandemic, albeit a little later than normal. Aiming for April or May, the club is planning on doing away with a catered buffet in favor of order-ahead, boxed dinners and a checkerboard set-up for seating to allow for social distancing. 

“Because of the amount of work, and (that) we've had to reinvent all of our events, it's put us a little bit behind on our typical calendar,” Phillips said.