THE GARDEN CLUB OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY
A member of The Garden Club of America (www.gcamerica.org)

GCAC began in 1914 with a group of dedicated volunteers. The club’s mission is promoting a greater knowledge of horticulture, interest in conservation and historic preservation, environmental education and civic planning and planting programs in the Pittsburgh Community. GCAC currently has 160+ dedicated members and is a member of the Garden Club of America with over 17,500 members nationally.

In April 1990, GCAC sponsored the Step One environmental conference, which focused on the loss of global biodiversity. Simply stated this is the variety found among living things. In 1995, inspired to act by what they learned from prominent scientists at that conference, two GCAC visionaries, Susan Clancy and Paula Sculley, founded Botany In Action to endow research students with grant money to do major fieldwork around the globe. Susan Clancy wrote, “Botany In Action grew out of frustration, wanting to do something about the bad news we saw in the media every day. We felt we could help solve in a small way the great global crises of human mismanagement leading to biodiversity and rainforest extinction!” Susan and Paula stated, “Over tea, we dreamed up a way to fund BIA and created PIZZAZZ.” They invited their creative friends to show their work, invited more friends to shop. Taking a sales commission they were able to create a garden club scholarship fund to pay for graduate students working at the front lines of this ecological drama. The more our friends spent on holiday shopping at PIZZAZZ, the more they would be saving a green world.” PIZZAZZ was held in Susan’s home at first, but quickly, PIZZAZZ grew and was moved to a grander location that could accommodate the growing event. Now, each October for the past dozen years, GCAC has assembled a collection of extraordinary boutiques from across the country for a three-day shopping extravaganza open to the public. Botany in Action was officially transferred to a permanent home at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in 2000. The remainder of the money was available for GCAC to use in the Pittsburgh area to fund their mission.

Please visit the Grants page for descriptions of several of the recent Pittsburgh area projects that have benefited from GCAC grants.