Sunborne Nursery is not only in partnership with our suppliers and customers, we are also in partnership with the Bayview - it provides us with our greenhouse facility and a great worforce that we appreciate tremendously.

While we employ a number of Bayview residents, we fully appreciate the fact that we can do more for the community with our business and horticulture experience and connections. That is the reason why we have taken on a number of community outreach programs. 

Below is a quick summary of some of the work that we are involved with, and some that will begin very shortly. If you would like more information on any of the programs described below, please reach out to Dan at 415-821-7726 (or dan@sunborne.com). Similarly, if you would like to participate in any of the programs we are leading, or if you have other ideas for community outreach opportunities, please give Dan a call. We are always open to new people and new ideas.

Education Activities:

        1)  Create and run an Interior landscape course for local Bayview residents with the goal of providing job training and employment at the end of the course. (Note: The first course took place during the winter and spring of 2010).    

         2)  Create and run a landscape training course for local Bayview residents with the goal of providing job training  and employent at the end of the course.

         3) Visit local schools, provide plants, gives tours of the nursery, and discuss various horticulture professions with students.

        4) Participate in all “Career Days” at Bayview schools

Mentoring Programs:

         1) Identify and recruit local horticultural companies to participate in the BGTA mentoring program. These companies could be interiorscape companies, landscape design companies, garden centers, and nurseries. 

         2) Promote the mentor program to members of the Bayview/Hunter’s Point community and help gather interested people into the program

        3) Support and foster a mutually beneficial relationship between the mentor and mentee

Job Placement:

        1) Coordinate job placement for local Bayview residents with horticultural companies.

Bayview Fundraising

        1) Support local Bayview community organization with their fundraising programs by donating plants supplies, time, and money

 Sunborne believes so strongly in the work of Green Plants for Green Buildings that we are partnering with them in the ‘Just a Buck’ campaign.  The campaign that we have launched is totally voluntary and involves customers giving the okay to Sunborne to add a $1 charge to their invoices. Again it is totally voluntary and we will not add the charge unless the customer tells us to do it. At the end of the month we will tally up the charges and Sunborne will donate all of the money, including a matching donation from Sunborne, to GPGB. 

For those of you unfamiliar with GPGB, it is a non-profit organization whose sole mission is to promote the use of live plants indoors. It represents Interiorscapers, Nurseries, Garden Centers, and anyone else – like you – whose livelihood revolves around indoor plants and related products.

Examples of your GPGB dollars at work:

Project Carbon is an ongoing research initiative developed by GPGB and funded by NFF (National Foliage Foundation). It involves the quantitative measurement of how much Carbon is removed by plants inside buildings. This promising research, being done by the University of Georgia, should prove that plants do in fact help reduce the carbon footprint of buildings – a huge plus for us in the ‘Green’ world we live in!

LEED Points for Plants is another GPGB initiative, co-funded by the IIC (Interior Industry Coalition), that involves the development of a Pilot Program for LEED credit, based on the use of plants indoors. If the submittal is successful, plants would then be eligible for LEED credits – another huge accomplishment for us in the specifier and building industries.

For more information on GPGB please visit our web site at www.gpgb.org. We hope you agree that GPGB’s   ‘live plants are an integral part of the Indoor Environment!’  message is a cause worth supporting!