Xi Sigma Pi, the National Forestry Honor Society, partnered with UNH Thompson School Greenhouses on Thursday, March 30, for a plant sale collaboration that featured a variety of plants.
While the Thompson school sells plants every spring semester out of the greenhouses, this is the first time Xi Sigma Pi has teamed up with them to sell them in the Memorial Union Building (MUB). The idea came from the fact that there isn’t much awareness about the plants that are being sold at the greenhouses each year. By bringing the plants to the MUB, the honor society was hoping to help the greenhouses reach out to students, as well as make it more convenient for students to buy the dorm plants and support the work that the greenhouses do.
According to Kimberly Lavoie, president of Xi Sigma Pi, the partnership for Xi Sigma Pi and the greenhouses work as the horticultural program and students grow the plants yearly. Xi Sigma Pi rents the table in the MUB, and is in charge of transporting and keeping track of the plants during and after the sale. The honor society then returns what wasn’t sold to the greenhouses.
“In exchange, a very generous 50 percent of the money we make off the plants are given to the organization, while the rest is given to the greenhouses,” Lavoie said.
Ultimately, the event acts as a fundraiser in which the money will be used for multiple organization related things, such as future events, and the Natural Resources and the Environment Barbecue at the end of the year.
Junior Meg Falcone, who was eating lunch in Union Court, stopped by the table. “I haven’t seen anything like this in Union before, so it was cool that they had something different,” Falcone said. “I just think it is a great idea to sell plants from the greenhouses, because I didn’t know they were available to students.”
Although the greenhouses themselves sell a wide arrangement of flowers, the table had an array of multiple species of succulents including cacti, as well as several species of flowering plants and even some orchids.
When asked if she would buy a plant, Falcone said that she was interested in getting a cactus because they are easy to take care of.
As spring approaches, the Greenhouses are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
