2018 ASHS Annual Conference

All across the United States, universities and organizations are working to recruit young people into horticultural programs to help them find their passions and fill the need for well-trained employees. Leading the charge is Seed Your Future, which is comprised of a broad range of horticultural industry, universities and organizations. Seed Your Future’s National Leadership Cabinet and Advisory Council continue to lead the national movement to promote horticulture in collaboration with FleishmanHillard, the Washington, D. C.-based marketing and communications firm. Progress in the past year included finalizing the BLOOM! campaign: BLOOM! is the movement to improve the world through the power of plants through a comprehensive multi-year plan to create and curate content (both in and outside of the classroom) and deploy a social media strategy.

In March 2018 the Scholastic site for BLOOM! was launched, where all the materials developed through Scholastic for teachers and youth program leaders are accessible. This great start is providing resources to those who work with middle schoolers: www.Scholastic.com/BLOOM. Additionally, the youth-focused WeAreBLOOM.org microsite went live on March 7, 2018, when teachers began to distribute the student magazines and held the first student contest, entitled plant mash-up, encouraging students to create their own new plants.

BLOOM! has exciting attractive images, words and information that are designed to connect with young people. Elements of the movement include promoting #GreenCollar careers, ground-breaking interviews with horticulturists, identifying horticulture heroes, and creating videos made specially to attract and inform middle and high school students about careers in horticulture.

BLOOM! educational materials include websites, interactive quizzes, plant powers, horticulture vignettes, social first videos, social media campaigns, education multi-media with Scholastic, student magazines, online learning modules and life lessons. The campaign will run from April to October 2018, which will be followed by assessment and year two planning.

Seed Your Future is not working in a vacuum. Universities and industry organizations are successfully implementing their own programs to increase the number of horticulture students. In this workshop we will learn from universities and industry organizations about their effective recruiting strategies and programs.