By Coral Gables Gazette staff

On the evening of April 24, nearly 300 guests arrived at the Coral Gables Golf and Country Club for the fourth annual Fashions & Florals fundraiser — and left having helped fund the next chapter of one of the city’s quietest and most consequential civic projects.

The Coral Gables Garden Club’s “Nightfall in the Garden” gala raised more than $50,000, the largest single-event total in the club’s fundraising history. Proceeds will support the construction of a micro-forest at the Coral Way entrance to the city and the continued habitat restoration of Girl Scout Camp Mahachee — two conservation projects that place the Garden Club, now in its 101st year, at the center of Coral Gables’ environmental future.

An evening designed with intention

The evening opened with a cocktail reception and silent auction featuring more than fifty donated items, followed by dinner in a ballroom decorated floor to ceiling in floral arrangements. The room reflected the event’s dual identity — part civic fundraiser, part celebration of the aesthetic life of a city that has taken its botanical character seriously since its founding.

The centerpiece of the evening was a professionally choreographed fashion show featuring male and female models wearing clothing and accessories by Julian Chang, a Peruvian-born Miami-based designer whose work spans sophisticated evening wear, a contemporary women’s collection sold in more than 600 boutiques worldwide, and custom designs for celebrities including Madonna, Gloria Estefan, Paris Hilton, and Janet Jackson. Known for his bold prints and signature silhouettes, Chang has received numerous accolades including Miami Fashion Week’s Pret-a-Porter Designer of the Year, Women’s Wear Daily’s Up-and-Coming Ready-to-Wear Designer to Watch, and the Key to the City of Miami Beach. His presence at a Garden Club fundraiser was not incidental — Chang’s work, rooted in Miami’s light and landscape, brought the evening’s floral theme into the clothes themselves.

DJ Ryan Troy kept the energy through the dinner hour and into the night. Event production was handled by Michele Reese Events. Co-chairs Jo Wanda Peterson and Barbara Reese led the organizing effort; sponsorship was chaired by immediate past president Susan Rodriguez. Major sponsors included Azamara Cruises, Julian Chang, Acqua Panna, Bacardi, Maison Perrier, and Belle Fleur Florist, which provided the table centerpieces.

City officials in attendance included Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, a Garden Club member; Commissioner Richard Lara; former Commissioner Kirk Menendez; and Deena Belle-Llewellyn, Assistant Director of Public Works, Greenspace Management Division, and an honorary Garden Club member.

Where the money goes

The funds raised will advance two distinct conservation commitments.

The first is the micro-forest at the Coral Way entrance to the city, developed in partnership with the City of Coral Gables through Project Canopy, the Garden Club’s ongoing initiative to plant native and flowering trees in public green spaces and schools. The city’s Greenspace Management Division is designing a dense micro-forest incorporating approximately 100 native trees and large shrubs of layered sizes at the Red Road and Coral Way entrance, with the goal of enhancing the city’s urban tree canopy and maintaining its coverage above 40 percent — a threshold required to preserve Coral Gables’ designation as a Tree City USA. Once complete, the site will function as a passive park where residents can encounter native plant habitat.

The second project is the habitat restoration of Girl Scout Camp Mahachee, an ongoing effort that connects the Garden Club’s conservation work to one of South Florida’s most historically significant green spaces.

“Fashions & Florals was a wonderful celebration of community, creativity, and our shared commitment to making Coral Gables greener and more beautiful for future generations,” said Garden Club President Bonnie Seipp. “We are deeply grateful to our sponsors, members, volunteers, and guests whose generosity made this extraordinary evening such a success.”

A club as old as the city itself

The Coral Gables Garden Club was founded in 1925 — the same year the city was incorporated — by a group that included Eunice Peacock Merrick and Althea Merrick, the wife and mother of city founder George Merrick. In the century since, the club has raised funds for new entrances to Coral Gables at Douglas and Red Roads and Miracle Mile, commissioned the bronze statues of George and Althea Merrick at City Hall, and supported the preservation of the Merrick House on Coral Way. Today it counts nearly 150 members, many of whom serve on city advisory boards or have sought elected office.

The Fashions & Florals format — now in its fourth year — reflects the club’s longstanding instinct that civic work and community celebration are not competing priorities. A well-dressed room and a micro-forest are, in the Garden Club’s view, expressions of the same commitment to the city.