Purple Pansies fundraiser is back!

By Joan Janzen

The Purple Pansies for Pancreatic Cancer fundraiser is back once again, thanks to the efforts of a team of dedicated volunteers. At the forefront of the group is Pam Kosolofski from Eston who has been organizing the event for years.

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“My daughter and I started twelve years ago when the fundraiser was started across Canada,” Pam explained. They sold 94 packs during that first year and the sales have continued to get bigger and better ever since.

At that time Pam contacted Oyen Greenhouse who gave them a really good cost price. “We made $13,000 last year, selling 3,000 four-packs of pansies. We don’t really have a deadline; we just sell as many as we can,” she said.

The fundraiser includes the communities of Kindersley, Eatonia, Eston, Elrose, Kerrobert, Wilkie, Rosetown, Saskatoon, as well as Airdrie where Pam’s daughter Tammy lives. “We’re spreading out pretty good,” Pam observed. “I’ve got lots of helpers.”

And lots of helpers are needed to make phone calls, and pick up and distribute the flowers, but Pam continues to contribute a great deal of time and effort to the project.

“I pick up all the boxes, deliver them and return the boxes the next day. It’s a lot of travelling,” she said. Owens and Sweitzer from Eston graciously lend a trailer and driver for the pick up.

“We’re up to 2200 flats sold, but we still have more to go. We need a little more promotion this year because some people are cutting back,” she explained. “When I walk in the greenhouse and see a flood of purple … it’s pretty nice.”

That flood of purple often spills over on to Pam’s deck. “I pick up the slack and take home a flat or two, so my deck looks purple,” Pam confessed.

Pam’s passion for the project has continued to motivate her for twelve years. Her daughter Tammy who lives in Airdrie sells about two hundred packs and drives to Oyen to pick them up. “She’s passionate about it too because of her dad, so that’s a good thing,” she said. Pam’s husband was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in October, 2010 and passed away in 2011.

As for Pam she said she’s “gotta keep on helping. They need all the help they can get.”

Pam Kosolofski’s daughter Tammy is as passionate about the Purple Pansies fundraiser as her mother. Tammy lives in Airdrie where she sells about 200 flats of flowers and drives to Oyen to pick them up.