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presented for helping to improve our community
by building bridges between people across cultural lines
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2002 RECIPIENT: NEWTOWN FLORIST CLUB

Local African-American women in Gainesville, Georgia, founded the Newtown Florist Club in the 1950s to provide support and limited financial assistance to families in need during bereavement. In time the group gradually became involved in other activities as well, such as advocacy around issues of environmental justice, industrial pollution and contamination, discrimination, cross-cultural unity, advocacy for students in school, youth leadership and more.

As part of ongoing efforts to build bridges across cultural lines, each year since 1998 the Newtown Florist Club has partnered with our local Hispanic community to help support the annual Marcha por la Paz ("March for Peace") in addition to the Martin Luther King Day celebration. In 2000 the group participated in the Unity Murals Summer Program in which African-American, Vietnamese, Latino and Anglo youth joined their skills and talents to create three large murals aimed at improving community relations. 

The Newtown Florist Club has also sponsored a number of youth programs including an annual girls summer leadership institute and a construction skills training program with college credits for high-school students. In every such program the Newtown Florist Club works hard to help ensure a broad representation of cultures and ethnicities among participants.

The Newtown Florist Club has also received a grant from the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta to fund a series of talks and special events aimed at building greater unity and understanding in our community among our Latino and African-American residents.