Dear Community,
What a week it has been! We were stunned and amazed by the amount of interest we received for the Bounty’s first online plant sale. Each year, we expect to serve around 400 customers; this year our website crashed within minutes of making the link live after 5,000 people tried to make orders. Another report identified almost 10,000 people sought to purchase plants from us. That alongside our first foray into online sales led to a lot of unexpected hurdles for everyone.
We are sensitive to people’s concern about food supply issues and we tried our best to serve as many people as well as we could but know that people were left frustrated and without plants. For that, we are sorry and will continue to make improvements. We appreciate your understanding and awareness that we are not a commercial operation and our 3.5 staff members put their all into making this plant sale fundraiser possible during these rapidly changing times.
There were many successes to celebrate including 1) the most funds raised for our programs since the start of the Plant Sale fundraiser, 2) we had more EBT (CalFresh) sales than ever before, 3) our sponsors provided the funds to reduce the cost of the edible plant starts by 50%, 4) volunteer new and seasoned that stepped up to support where and when needed, 5) expanded outreach to new customers and potential volunteers, 6) Heritage Salvage raised funds for Bounty and PPSC’s other food programs through sales of their garden box kits, 7) Bounty hosted Petaluma Garden Club sale so they wouldn’t have to cancel their own, 8) many happy gardeners!
At this time, we have taken our sale offline- because we weren’t confident in the inventory system and we weren’t getting plants to the people who face barriers to accessing plants (due to age, illness, concerns of money, etc.). If you face barriers to acquiring plants (like the reasons listed above) or are supporting local efforts to grow food for community, please reach out to info@petalumabounty.org.
If you have the means, we thank you for wanting to support Petaluma Bounty’s work! We are grateful for your donations of time and money! AND we want to encourage everyone to support local businesses such as Cottage Gardens, Friedman’s Home Supply, Harmony Farm Supply (now located in North Petaluma), River Town Feed, or Walnut Park Farmers Market.
If you are worried it’s too late to plant, know that parts of Sonoma County are still experiencing frost and there is plenty of time left to grow your own food. See this list for more gardening resources!
A special thank you to our sponsors for making this possible! Please buy local first whenever you can!
