The First Lady’s Luncheon Showcases Certified American Grown’s Farms

In September of this year, Certified American Grown was again a wonderful supporter and sponsor of the bi-partisan First Lady’s Luncheon, held annually by The Congressional Club in Washington, DC.  CAG farm members were featured for their phenomenal contributions and generosity to the event that allowed a design team of 20 lead by floral designer, Carrie Wilcox Floral Design from Connecticut, to develop beauty that brought the event to life.  The luncheon brings the opportunity for the organization to connect with members of Congress, their spouses, regulatory officials, and others, all while assisting in raising funds for national non-profit organizations, identified and supported by the First Lady and members of The Congressional Club.  The 109^th annual event was chaired by Mrs. Leah Dunn, spouse of the honorable Congressman Neal Dunn of Florida.

Certified American Grown is proud of the following member farms and associated sponsors that assisted in making the support of this event possible with. The following farms provided gorgeous flowers and foliage that were used in numerous implementations for the event:

• Bee’s Wing Farm, Virginia
• Camflor, California
• Continental Floral Greens, California, Oregon, Washington and Florida
• Eufloria, California
• Fern Trust Inc., Florida
• Glad A Way Gardens, California
• Green Valley Floral, California
• Harmony Harvest Farm, Virginia
• Kendall Farms, California
• LynnVale Studios, Virginia
• Mellano & Company, California
• Menagerie Flower Farm, California
• Myriad Flowers, California
• Ocean Breeze Farms, California
• Pyramid Flowers, California
• Resendiz Brothers, California
• Sun Valley Flower Farm, California
• Sutton Ferneries, Florida

These farms, along with the design team of talented professionals from Alaska to Florida, Virginia to Florida, Kansas to Georgia, and Illinois to California.  All of the flowers, foliages and supplies would not have been possible without the generosity and support of the team at DV Flora and Oasis Floral Products. The teams banded together and shared in the lift that made a spectacular event possible.

Volunteer team lead by Carrie Wilcox consisted of Kelly Shore (Logistics Coordinator), Quan Gobachevski, Tina Ahlberg, Andrea Grist, Laurie Moore, Rose Gazarek, Scott Rusch, Ingrid Pulecio, Genevieve Tymrak, Elikonida “Lika” Reutov, Meredith Clark, Shelby Waldroup, Emma Walker, Wendy Sulivan, Olivia Centanni, Ashley Brant, Rita Jo Shoultz and Victoria Register.

While in Washington DC, CAG leaders and members present spent time meeting with Members of Congress, staff and others to share the importance of items such as the need for the Senate to pass the American Grown Act as the House of Representatives had, move to continue support Country of Origin labelling, begin to look towards key issues for the 2023 Farm Bill including items such as access to crop insurance, disaster relief, and availability of credit and loan funding for farms, just to name a few.  Through the work of Rita Jo Shoultz (CAG Chair), Victoria Register (Fern Trust/CAG Member), Camron King (CAG CEO & Ambassador) and Jumana Madanat Misleh (CAG Government Affairs) ongoing discussions, touch points and messages are conveyed and work towards our organizational mission continues.

Please help us in thanking our farms, volunteers, partners, and supportive members for their work!

To view the full album of photos; visit our Flickr page.