42nd annual Fairbanks plant sale to provide funds for those in hospice care

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU/KTVF) - Interior residents will be able to help those who are in hospice care this weekend with the 42nd annual Hospice Plant Sale.

The volunteer-run sale will run Saturday and is put on by hospice services for the Greater Fairbanks Community Hospital Foundation, a nonprofit with ties to Foundation Health Partners.

“All of the funds that are collected here go to patients in need,” said Althea St. Martin, the coordinator for the sale. “So if their medical services have run out, if they have personal finances that run out, we can step in.”

St. Martin said that helping victims of fraud who are in hospice care is just one example of how these funds are used.

“One person’s bank account was just cleared out, so we paid their rent for them,” she said.

According to St. Martin, the goal of the sale is to fill the fund for hospice services so the patients who need the most help can receive it.

“This is a wonderful, wonderful thing to bring the community together,” she said. “People bring in donations of plants that they’ve purchased or bought elsewhere that they go dig up their perennial beds and bring us perennials. So we get a lot of donors.”

There’s also a large number of volunteers.

“What this does is just really highlights hospice and it gives those people that really want to give back to hospice that have been touched by the services. It gives them a chance to also get back,” St. Martin explained.

St. Martin said the sale raised $300 when it began in 1983, while the most money the sale has ever raised was $55,000.

The sale will take place on Saturday, May 24, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Hospice Greenhouse located at 2000 Turner Street.

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