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One of the things that we love most about tulips is how they bring people together. Here in the Skagit Valley, they epitomize community, nature, agriculture, beauty, and hope. The annual tulip bloom here in the Valley is something hundreds of thousands of people look forward to every spring, and hundreds of small local businesses join together to create and share value with our guests. This year, our rookie year here at Tulip Town, things are going to be different due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As soon as we realized the potential impact of this pandemic we completely scrapped a plan that had been in place here at Tulip Town for 36 years and choose to innovate around the idea that this challenge could drive clarity and creativity instead of fear and paralysis. We realized that we could still share the beauty of our bloom with both our guests AND further the shared economic benefits, by some estimates over $65M a year, that so many of our friends, neighbors, and public services rely upon every year.
To be absolutely clear--there is a lot more that we’re fighting for here than just our farm, and we aren’t giving up.
Our tulips, they aren’t about us. They are about ALL of us. We know that together we will turn these challenges into opportunities. Tulips have for centuries, been bringing people together to wonder and wander, and we decided this year should honor that tradition, but in a new way.
This year we’re going to come together via new connections in different ways. We’ll have new experiences and make new friends. We’ll share new things, and learn new things.
Our commitment to our community and our guests remains unchanged:
- We will continue to explore every conceivable way to safely share the bounty of the bloom this year in order to come back even stronger next year
- We will continue to create and share digital content that is both beautiful and engaging in a time where beauty and connection is so important for our emotional and physical well-being
- We will continue to explore ways our guests and customers can purchase tulip bulbs, bouquets, tulip merchandise and experiences like bulb planting workshops this fall
- We will continue to pursue our plan of creating year-round on-farm experiences like “the Harvest at Tulip Town” and “the Holidays at Tulip Town” as well as other “reasons every season” to be here at Tulip Town
How You Can Help
It might take a village to raise a child, but it’s going to take a community to save the tulips.
Here are a few ways you can help us make sure the tulips come back to Tulip Town and the Skagit Valley next year:
- Please follow, share, and encourage others to follow our story on social media and on our website at www.tuliptown.com. We can’t have a community without communication and we love connecting with all of you via these channels
- Please buy your tulip bulbs at www.tuliptown.com and encourage other tulip lovers to do likewise. Your order today will help us keep the lights on through the harvest, storage, and shipping seasons.
- Please consider waving your Tulip Town flag by shopping for Tulip Town and Skagit Valley Tulip Festival apparel and branded gifts on our website
- Please consider purchasing #colorforcourage bouquets that will be sent to nursing homes, hospitals, and to first-responders and essential public utility workers that are courageously battling COVID-19 on the front lines. Details of this program are on our website.
- Please consider purchasing one of our Tulip Town Memberships with exclusive opportunities for workshops and limited edition apparel. Further details on our website.
- Please consider participating in our “What’s at Stake” program where, we will put your name, or the name of a loved one that wishes they could be here this year on one of our tulip labeling stakes and we will “stake out” a row in the field your honor. A “What’s at Stake” gallery will be on our website and at the end of the year we will collect the stakes and secure them in a “When Tulip Town Was At Stake” memorial.
- Wherever you live we encourage you to consider prioritizing the patronage of small businesses in your community.
For the five of us growing up in the Skagit Valley meant working in the fields as kids, where we learned that “a little dirt don’t hurt” and you better show up every day, rain or shine, ready to do what needed to be done or you didn’t get to come back. It’s no small miracle that we find ourselves, 30 years later, standing in these same fields we love, the fields that made us, shoulder-to-shoulder against a challenge so unprecedented it threatens not only our farm but the very foundations of the Tulip Festival, and the very icon of our home.
We’re humbled and grateful for confidence and concern so many of you have shown us during these trying times.
Let’s continue to come together for each other, for the tulips, and for our future.