Crafting Excellent Plant Markers and Responding to the Needs of Our Neighbors
Our family wants to be directly engaged in making a difference in the lives of others. Through our company, Kincaid Plant Markers, we hope to help you as gardeners, business owners and retailers take pride in your plants, keep them organized and create whatever statements in your landscaping that make you happy. Long before we started our business of plant markers we were trying to help the less fortunate in our community. Today, we still believe that we must be responsible community members by giving to those in need in our community.
For decades, my wife and I have served the hungry once a month at St. Joseph’s Open Door Food Kitchen. Sometimes a person might need help for a few weeks. Other people become familiar faces to them, folks who need more than just a little help. Each time our family serves happily knowing that we are helping our fellow neighbors.
Our family-owned business now gives back through the dollars we make at Kincaid Plant Markers. For over 10 years, I have been a board member and volunteered with the Second Harvest Community Food Bank, an organization that provides families and school children with fresh and non-perishable foods. For some families this may be the only food they have to put on their family’s table. Now our family has decided to use our business to help the families who come to Second Harvest even more.
Every plant marker that you purchase from us benefits the Backpack Buddies program at Second Harvest. Volunteers at Second Harvest fill backpacks full of food to give to school children in need every Friday so that they will have something to eat on the weekends, when they won’t be nourished by school meals. During the 2014 school year, Backpack Buddies provided meals for over 3,200 children in 50 schools over 18 counties.
This year, our plant markers have also helped fight hunger in a different way. More and more schools in the St. Joseph, MO, school district are creating community gardens. This means more children can learn to grow their own foods, appreciate fresh, non-packaged foods and then take some locally-grown food home to their families. At Mark Twain Elementary School, our Kincaid Plant Markers help children learn what different vegetables look like throughout the growing season. When the children first planted their seeds last spring, they proudly placed one of our markers in various areas of the garden. As the growing season began, they saw how their tiny seeds became a part of a larger plan as their green beans began sprawling out and mingling with the tomatoes, lettuce, corn, turnips, onions and other produce. Over the summer, and this fall, they are enjoying the fruits of their labor.
We enjoy the fruits of our labor all year long with excellent customers and the knowledge that we’re helping many children and families in need with every sale. Thanks to all of you who help us help others by purchasing Kincaid Plant Markers. Today, know that your markers aren’t just making you happy, but they are feeding others’ lives and dreams, too!
