To help recognize and celebrate the Grantham Garden Club’s 25th anniversary, the club decided to join this year's Grantham Old Home Day parade on June 29th. Nancy MacKenzie and Nancy Menton known as The Nancy’s took on the volunteer task to come up with ‘something’ for the parade. The Nancy’s went above and beyond and wowed everyone with their masterpiece—the flowered mini-cooper. (Mini-cooper provided by Nancy MacKenzie.)
The Nancy's made a pattern and cut out green material to completely cover the car with faux flower petals. Volunteer teams showed up on June 5th and 10th to work on the flowers that began their lives as leis. Eastman Rec provided a room and a bunch of glue guns to augment a meager supply. The volunteers were given carte blanche to mix and match different colored petals and glue them together in stacks of three or four to give them depth. There were more than a few yelps heard initially when inexperienced glue gunners got hot glue on their fingers, but GGC volunteers are a tough breed and soldiered on.
Armed with thousands of pretty petals, The Nancy’s took it from there. The day before the parade, they spent the afternoon in Nancy Menton’s driveway under blue skies gluing all the flower petals onto the cloth and then attaching the flower covered cloth to the mini using magnets. Nancy MacKenzie added the final touch with a Live Free and Bloom license plate.
Grantham Old Home Day has been celebrated since the 1800’s. It’s traditional for parade participants to hand out goodies to the folks lining the route. Fittingly, the garden club contingent gave out packets of wildflowers. Weeks beforehand, Nancy MacKenzie had put her grands to work filling little envelopes with the seeds. One of the grandchildren had commented “I thought it would be boring, but it was fun.” Coincidentally that's what a lot of GGC volunteers often say!
When Old Home Day dawned, there was intermittent rain so umbrellas were added to the signs the walkers carried. We were more worried about all those pretty flowers but soon learned (we should have known) that flowers--even faux flowers--love a gentle rain so they were happy. At 10:30 sharp the parade began and the rain let up so the mini convertible top finally came down to reveal The Nancy’s in their flower bonnets. The GGC contingent paraded down Rte 10 to the sounds of “Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make my garden grow” as The Nancy’s perfect their royal waves. Nice to think of wildflowers growing in people's yards thanks to the GGC.
The Grantham fire trucks led the parade so they could be the first ones to the Recreation field to help with their famous chicken barbeque. Renee Gustafson was waiting at the GGC table to hand out business cards and tell people about the club. All the parade vehicles parked on the rec field so people could check them out up close. When an admirer asked who the vendor was that made the flower cover for the mini-cooper, The Nancy’s knew they had done a professional job.
A great big thank you to The Nancy’s and all the volunteers pictured below.
The Nancy's made a pattern and cut out green material to completely cover the car with faux flower petals. Volunteer teams showed up on June 5th and 10th to work on the flowers that began their lives as leis. Eastman Rec provided a room and a bunch of glue guns to augment a meager supply. The volunteers were given carte blanche to mix and match different colored petals and glue them together in stacks of three or four to give them depth. There were more than a few yelps heard initially when inexperienced glue gunners got hot glue on their fingers, but GGC volunteers are a tough breed and soldiered on.
Armed with thousands of pretty petals, The Nancy’s took it from there. The day before the parade, they spent the afternoon in Nancy Menton’s driveway under blue skies gluing all the flower petals onto the cloth and then attaching the flower covered cloth to the mini using magnets. Nancy MacKenzie added the final touch with a Live Free and Bloom license plate.
Grantham Old Home Day has been celebrated since the 1800’s. It’s traditional for parade participants to hand out goodies to the folks lining the route. Fittingly, the garden club contingent gave out packets of wildflowers. Weeks beforehand, Nancy MacKenzie had put her grands to work filling little envelopes with the seeds. One of the grandchildren had commented “I thought it would be boring, but it was fun.” Coincidentally that's what a lot of GGC volunteers often say!
When Old Home Day dawned, there was intermittent rain so umbrellas were added to the signs the walkers carried. We were more worried about all those pretty flowers but soon learned (we should have known) that flowers--even faux flowers--love a gentle rain so they were happy. At 10:30 sharp the parade began and the rain let up so the mini convertible top finally came down to reveal The Nancy’s in their flower bonnets. The GGC contingent paraded down Rte 10 to the sounds of “Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make my garden grow” as The Nancy’s perfect their royal waves. Nice to think of wildflowers growing in people's yards thanks to the GGC.
The Grantham fire trucks led the parade so they could be the first ones to the Recreation field to help with their famous chicken barbeque. Renee Gustafson was waiting at the GGC table to hand out business cards and tell people about the club. All the parade vehicles parked on the rec field so people could check them out up close. When an admirer asked who the vendor was that made the flower cover for the mini-cooper, The Nancy’s knew they had done a professional job.
A great big thank you to The Nancy’s and all the volunteers pictured below.
Nancy Menton Nancy MacKenzie, Betsy Fowler , Nancy Larsen, and Emma Kaladjian on June 5th
Emma, Carol, 3 Nancy's, Betsy
Nancy MacKenzie, Kathy, Rose, and Jane on June 10th
Nancy Menton, Kathy Houghton, Nancy MacKenzie, Rose Palmer, and Martha Sweeney
The tailoring job on the mini
Nancy MacKenzie's grands stuffing seeds and GGC business cards. Thank you gang!
The Nancy's glued on all the petals to the green cloth and used magnets to put the cloth on the car.
Karin, Louise, Maryellen, Tina and her pooch Trixie in the rain.
Louise, Karin, Sharon, Jim, Maryellen, Marty, Kristina, Stephen, Betsy, Terri
The Nancy's
Ludo, Tina, Louise, Betsy, Stephen, The Nancy's, Karin, Sharon, Maryellen, Marty, and Kathy
The decorations are in the GGC storage unit and ready to be reused and repurposed.