Congratulations to the DGC 2024 VIP Awardees

At our 2024 Holiday Party, we announced the DGC 2024 VIP recipients. We are grateful for our dedicated members and look forward to celebrating their contributions at the GCI 2025 State Convention.

Congratulations to DGC 2024 VIP Karen Doyle

Information from the award sent on to the Garden Clubs of Illinois Inc.

Since joining the Darien Garden Club in 2015, Karen has held several positions in the club with her most recent position as Treasurer for the past 3 years. She provides monthly reports on time for Board and General meetings and can quickly get answers to our financial questions. She works behind the scenes delivering checks, invoicing for garden therapy, organizing online payments for technology and keeping track of all the funds. She is also available at general meetings to oversee transactions. She has been a level head providing sound advice and historical information as we work though budget planning discussions each year.

After initially joining the club, Karen became the club secretary and later took over as Program Chair for 2 years. She served as chairperson for obtaining speakers for the Spring Gardening Inspiration, as well as helping with SGI marketing, assisted in helping to figure out how to post on Facebook and took over our website until our current expert took over.

Karen became the club VP in 2019, and President in 2020-2021 where she was instrumental in helping us move to electronic meetings and keeping our club viable during Covid. She streamlined the board meeting by asking for reports prior to the meeting. She supported our most recent garden walk and other fundraisers by managing online sales, counting receipts, and serving as docent.

One member said, “I am so grateful for Karen's hard work, and we are a better club due to her tireless efforts.”

We are delighted to present a Very Important Person Award to Karen Doyle. Congratulations Karen!

Congratulations to DGC 2024 VIP

Yvonne Mlynarczyk

Information from the award sent on to the Garden Clubs of Illinois Inc.

Since joining our club in 2004, Yvonne has been a valuable member. She has held many Committee Chair positions, including Program Chair, Plant Sale Chair, and Awards Chair for four years. Her most recent position as Awards Chair is an example of going above and beyond in her contribution to the club. In 2023 we won a total of 21 awards from Garden Clubs of Illinois, National Garden Clubs, and Central region which includes 7 states. With those awards, our club received $385 in monetary awards. Her expertise has not only given our cub outstanding recognition, but people have searched her out for advice for their clubs on how to improve their programs.

Yvonne successfully led the NexTrex Plastic Film Recycling program in 2023-2024, collecting over 1,000 pounds of materials and earning a new park bench for the Sprouts Garden.

Her other accomplishments include securing multiple speakers for our clubs symposium for the Spring Gardening Inspiration. She was Raffle Chair for SGI for 2 years coordinating up to 40 raffle baskets and bringing in over $1,000 in proceeds.

The list of her other contributions over the years is long but in addition to her leadership, Yvonne brings a warmth in her smile and attitude to many new members and visitors, showing that we are a welcoming club. She is always willing to engage in conversation to ease the apprehension of attending a new club for the first time. She has encouraged many people to get involved in the various opportunities the club has to offer with the assurance that they will meet many new friends by getting involved.

We are delighted to present a Very Important Person Award to Yvonne Mlynarczyk. Congratulations Yvonne!