Volunteer Spotlight: Lisa Schrott

By Stephanie Bergan

Phipps is well-known for our beautiful gardens, seasonal flower shows, pioneering sustainability initiatives, informative educational programs and community outreach. None of our work, however, would be possible without the knowledge and dedication of our volunteers. In this series of profiles, we meet some of the people who give their time to make Phipps possible.

Always having a passion for gardening and volunteering, it wasn’t until two years ago when Lisa Schrott began her volunteering here at Phipps. To better her gardening skills, she decided to take the Master Gardener course which allowed her to get her start in volunteering at the Conservatory. She has loved it since then.

As a stay-at-home mom, Lisa spent majority of her time volunteering for various places and causes. She was busy being her children’s school PTA treasurer, the treasurer for the soccer team, working at school events and even volunteering her time for United Way where she did tax-returns for low-income individuals. Once her kids were out of school and pursuing their college careers, Lisa decided that she wanted to further her gardening and landscape passion while also still volunteering. She quickly ended up at Phipps!

Lisa does “a little bit of everything” around Phipps. She has volunteered her time to the summer and day camps, where she enjoys working with kids of all ages. She was also a judge for the Tomato and Garlic Festival, volunteered at our May Market and helped with the installation of Summer Flower Show. Although she does all of these things, the majority of her time is spent giving tours, especially the ones for field trips.

In order to be allowed to give tours, Lisa had to take a six-week mini docent training program. During this program, she would go to each room of the Conservatory and speak with the head horticulturalist and team of the room to get a better understanding of the plants, how they plan the room and any other background information. After learning everything that she could, Lisa became certified to give tours. Whenever we have a new show opening, she’ll join the walkthrough, one of her favorite parts of volunteering, just so that she can keep up with any fun facts that she can say to her tour guests.

Although Lisa spends most of her time working with the guests, she hopes to one day expand her volunteering where she can get her hands dirty. By learning more about the horticultural process here at Phipps and spending more time volunteering, she would like to be an even bigger part of the volunteering team.

Photo © Paul g. Wiegman