Partner Spotlight: The Plant Exchange

The Wright Gardner has been designing unique and completely customized plant and floral arrangements for the San Francisco business community since 1987. We offer professional solutions for indoor plant design and plant care as we make our clients’ spaces more vibrant, productive, and healthy for both customers and staff. We partner with The Plant Exchange, a non-profit environmental organization that promotes sustainable gardening, to help the community. Here is our interview with Oddette Pollor, Executive Director and Founder at The Plant Exchange.

Tell Us About The Plant Exchange

The Plant Exchange is a Bay Area non-profit organization that runs events and programs to promote sustainable gardening, reduce waste, educate people about environmental justice, and build a community around the love of gardening. As a mostly volunteer-led organization, we unite people of all ages and backgrounds, promoting the personal and community benefits gardening offers to everyone involved. We run swap meets and community gardening events, and facilitate donations of much-needed plants and gardening materials to other non-profit organizations, like schools and senior centers, to support their environmental programming.

How Does The Support You Get From The Wright Gardner Advance The Mission Of The Organization?

Having a robust supply of quality plants and gardening supplies is really key to our ability to support our local community’s gardening activities, and The Wright Gardner’s plant donations are a key part of this. What’s cool is that while the plants we get from The Wright Gardener may no longer have been usable inside the office of an elite law firm, for example, they might be perfect for a local school, senior center, community garden, or non-profit organization. Our partnership with The Wright Gardener makes this recycling possible.

What Would The Wright Gardner’s Customers Be Happy to Know About Our Partnership?

When office plants maintained by The Wright Gardner are no longer suitable for the commercial office environment, usually because they are just no longer meeting aesthetic standards of the kinds of elite offices they service, those plants get returned to The Wright Gardener’s warehouse, picked up by The Plant Exchange, and then get recycled back into the community. Returned plants may end up on display or used in educational programming in our local K12 schools, senior centers, or community gardens. Or, they may end up in the hands of a gardening enthusiast acquired at one of our plant swaps. No matter where they land, they support our mission.  

How Can People Directly Support The Plant Exchange?

We are always in need of donations and volunteers, as well as people who want to attend our events. The easiest way to get started with no obligations is to join our mailing list or just attend a Plant Exchange event. For those who are really excited about our mission, you can donate right on our website, or complete a form to become a volunteer. Non-profits seeking the support of the Plant Exchange should fill out a request.

More Information About The Wright Gardner

At The Wright Gardner, we offer both plant sales and leasing options that are flexible enough for any commercial budget. Contact us at (415) 431-3632 for more information or to request a consultation. We proudly serve San Fransisco and the surrounding areas including Sacramento, San Jose, the Bay Area, Oakland, Silicon Valley, and East Bay.