Selby Gardens Announces announces a Campaign Capping Challenge

October 8—Sarasota, FL

The Master Plan for Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus is integral to preserving our history, safeguarding our world-renowned research collections, and sustaining our future. 

Today, we are excited to announce a Campaign Capping Challenge to secure the remaining funds needed for Phase One of the Master Plan. With $5 million left to raise to reach the updated Phase One Goal of $45 million, an initiator group of loyal champions has stepped forward to provide a $2.5 million dollar match or 50 percent of the $5 million left to raise for Phase One – if the rest of the community provides the remaining $2.5 million needed.

Phase One is already underway and will make possible:

• A new Welcome Center to properly accommodate and orient guests.
• A cutting-edge Plant Research Center that will include a state-of-the-art Herbarium and Laboratory as well as a Research Library to appropriately steward rare books and prints dating to the 1700s.
• The Living Energy Access Facility (LEAF) that will house parking, a gift shop, and a garden-level restaurant – topped with a 50,000-square-foot solar array that will make Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota campus the world’s first net-positive botanical garden complex. 

We are so grateful for the generosity of the donors who have already given to the overall campaign – and to those who came forward to initiate this challenge.  The initiators include Lead Donors Drs. Joel Morganroth and Gail Morrison Morganroth and the Steinwachs Family Foundation. Benefactor Donors include the Frank E. Duckwall Foundation, Cornelia and Richard Matson, and Hobart and Janis Swan. Additional donors include Sherry and Howard Davis, Keith Monda and Veronica Brady, Pauline L. Wamsler and David J. Sales, Katherine and Frank Martucci, Doug and Betsy Elder,Jean Weidner Goldstein, and several anonymous donors.

Now, we need your help as every dollar contributed up to $2.5 million will be matched dollar-for-dollar!  Gifts at all levels are welcome, and there are naming opportunities starting at $2,500.Please feel free to contact Hermione Gilpin, Vice President for Institutional Advancement & Planning, at hgilpin@selby.orgor 941.248.3583 for more information or to make a contribution.
 
Thank you for your vital, ongoing support of Selby Gardens. We look forward to hearing from you – and cannot wait to celebrate the ribbon-cutting for Phase One with you in less than two years!