Jan Davidson
Come one, come all!
Don’t miss the SunBird Garden Club’s Donna Bergmann Memorial Home Tour on Sunday, March 13, from noon to 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance, and they will be available at the clubhouse.
This year our Home Tour is dedicated to Donna Bergmann, who was a very active member of the Garden Club for many years. She was a master organizer of many of the previous Home Tours and helped make this event the great success that it has become. She sadly passed away last year and is dearly missed by our club. Ken Bergmann has graciously opened their beautiful home for our tour this year.
What is the Home Tour? you might ask. For those who are new to SunBird, this is an event where homes within our community are opened for viewing to those who purchase a ticket. This is a major fundraising event for the SunBird Garden Club. The monies that are raised are used to fund projects within SunBird to beautify and maintain many of the outdoor areas in and around our community. This work is done in collaboration with the SunBird management, the HOA, and the golf course.
This year, we have six homes that owners are inviting you to tour. Some of the homes have been cleverly renovated and/or extended so that you may not recognize the original floor plans, while others have been beautifully and uniquely decorated, or both. This often gives many of us who go on the tour great ideas for our own homes, or just the opportunity to appreciate the energy and creativity that goes into making SunBird homes “our own.”
Each ticket sold will be accompanied by a map of SunBird highlighting the homes on tour, as well as a brief overview of each of the homes. You will also receive shoe coverings with your tickets, and these must be worn the day of the tour. We are very grateful to these homeowners and, as such, we take precautions to make sure that the homes are left as they were found prior to the tour. Additionally, each home will be identified by a large, potted, wooden sunflower displayed at the front driveway so that people can easily recognize that this is a home on the tour.
On arrival at each home, you will be asked to put on the supplied shoe coverings before you enter the home. When you have finished the walk-through, we ask that you remove the booties and take them with you to the next house. At the conclusion of the tour, we will have a bin for you to dispose of your shoe coverings.
Three hostesses will be in each home to guide you through and who may point out some of the unique features of the home. They also will direct the traffic and keep the flow going. Light refreshments will be served at Ken and Donna Bergmann’s home on the back patio, and this will be identified on your map. How you plan your tour is up to you—there is no specific order for how to view the homes. We hope that you will come out and support the Garden Club. Believe me—this is a fun tour, and you won’t want to miss it!