Customers often want to know how the proceeds of the Garden Fair sale are used. The Hyde Park Garden Fair Committee is pleased to sponsor a wide variety of activities in the Hyde Park-Kenwood area.

Foremost among the supported items is the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference. The Conference is one of the oldest community organizations in the country dedicated to maintaining and enhancing an attractive, secure, diverse, and caring community. It promotes participation of its residents, businesses, institutions, and organizations in programs and activities that advance the interests and concerns of the community. These includes working committees on transit, parks, streetscapes, condo/coop associations, schools, the Chicago Area Gaming League (a high-school math project), zoning, historical preservation, and forums devoted to a discussion of Hyde Park-Kenwood's future.

However, the Garden Fair's support goes far wider. For 2011, the Garden Fair Committee has authorized financial support for the following projects:

• Nichols Park (both formal gardens and the wildflower meadow)
• Spruce Park
• Elm Park Playlot
• Streetscaping on 53rd
• Hanging baskets on 53rd and 55th Streets in Hyde Park
• Growing Home (job training through agriculture)
• DARE (Disabled Adult Residents Enterprise) landscaping
• Washington Park Conservancy "Go Native" Garden at Dyett School
• The Op-Shop's Public Children's Learning Garden in Nichols Park

Moreover, plants that are left over at the end of the Garden Fair sale are donated to community organizations in the area between 47th Street and 60th Street, from Lake Michigan to Cottage Grove Avenue, including schools, churches and synagogues, and community nonprofit organizations. Contact the Garden Fair Committee for information on how to be added to the list to qualifying organizations that receive free plants.