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Mother’s Day Spring Faire at Cascade Garden!! Live music, food, beautiful gardens, awesome vendors, activities, beer and wine garden with our signature mimosas, complimentary photobooth, dance performances, a free flower for every mom …. and that’s not all. We donate all proceeds to support local foster kids. We love it and although we missed everyone last year, we are excited to be back with our 11th annual Spring Faire. (It would have been our 14th, but things got in the way.)
Besides having to cancel during COVID, we cancelled Mother's Day Spring Faire last year because we lost our 18 year old son Fritz, our only child, after a short illness and we couldn’t face Mother’s Day without him. We are back in 2024 bigger and better than ever -- WITH A SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO FRITZ. It will be the best Spring Faire yet!! For a lovely well-done story about Fritz and his decision to help others (that was actually picked up nationally), you can view it by clicking here at Eric's Heroes: Fritz's Final Journey Heartbreaking. Heartwarming.
Here's a brief history of Spring Faire. Before it became the amazing fundraiser for local foster kids that it is today, the old Cascade Nursery kicked off the summer season for theor nursery and garden center. The tradition of celebrating Mother's Day was legendary! Everyone was welcomed to the nursery with live music and a bottomless pot of chili as they shopped for their spring plants and toured the amazing grounds. Many would bring their own lawn chairs and spend the whole day.
When we bought Cascade Garden in 2008, we received many calls in the spring asking if Mother's Day would be celebrated. So we decided to make an event of our own. With Fritz's help, we transformed this fun old yearly ritual into an NEW annual event, officially dubbed "Mother's Day Spring Faire." It's everything you might expect from a "fair" with an "e". We invite local artists and artisans to exhibit and sell their creations and handmade items. You might look forward to glass blowing, jewelry, repurposed goods, garden furnishings, bakery treats, fresh gourmet food, hand sewn items, and much more! All day live music, wine and beer garden, and flowers for sale.
Fritz has been a huge part of Mother's Day Spring Faire since we reinvented it in 2011. He donated not only his time, but he also made monetary contributions every year, even as a little kid. He worked as the cutest vendor of handmade wooden pens with his Opa Paul and then donated the profits. For many years he shared his baby chicks and raised money by taking donations from any who wanted a change to handfeed them treats. For a couple of years he even charged guests to hold a bottle for baby lambs and donated the proceeds. More recently, he headed up the parking lot crews and rounded up his friends to help with all the heaving lifting. It was our annual tradition and the highlight of our year. I always popped into the photobooth with him, and then we put our feet up at the end of the long day together to finally celebrate Mother's Day in our own way.
By now, Mother's Day Spring Faire has truly become a legendary tradition in its own right. It's one of the few events actually hosted by Cascade Garden with the gardens are open to the public for all to enjoy. Generations of moms come to experience music in the gardens, do a little shopping, and eat good food. (Well, it's true, sometimes they come for the mimosas, too.) Every mom is presented with a free flower at the gate and everybody is treated to complimentary photobooth. (Thanks Photo Tap!) The festive atmosphere is undeniable.
But there's more to it than that. At Spring Faire, Mother's Day is all about supporting local foster kids. All of the proceeds from Mother's Day Spring Faire go directly to Voices for Children Foundation of Yakima, a local non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of local foster kids. Mother's Day Spring Faire was born out of our desire to give back to our community, and it has blossomed far beyond our imagination. We are grateful to a generous community for your outpouring of support for local foster kids. It's a joyous event and a great way to treat mom on her special day. But beyond that, the stories of how the funds raised on Mother's Day are used to enrich the lives of the most vulnerable children in our area are tremendous. We set the stage, but it is all of you who make Mother's Day Spring Faire so special and so successful.
PLEASE CONSIDER MAKING A DONATION TO VOICES FOR CHILDREN FOUNDATION AT http://voicesforchildrenyakima.org
Cascade Garden is located at 5704 W. Washington Ave, and can be reached at (509) 966-3744.
Voices for Children Foundation
Dedicated to improving the lives of foster children in the Yakima Valley
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