More than three decades after summers spent boarding the spinach bus bound for fields where they’d pick and remove male spinach plants from the females; five high school friends returned home to their roots.
Armed with law degrees and stints at Fortune 500 businesses, the natives from Skagit Valley, a farming community an hour north of Seattle, WA founded Spinach Bus Ventures to help promote, preserve and create economic development in the place where they were raised.
Their first investment last June was a tulip farm purchased from the previous owners of 36 years.
Photo courtesy of Tulip Town
The spinach bus squad were not only the new owners; they were the new operators.
March 2020 was to be their inaugural season; the same month, Washington Governor Jay Inslee issued a stay at home order due to the devastating COVID-19 pandemic.
“For the first time since 1984, the annual four-week long Tulip Festival was canceled, and our farm was simultaneously shut down,” said Andrew Miller, chief executive officer of Tulip Town. “The tulip bloom here is something hundreds of thousands of people from across the world look forward to every spring, and hundreds of small local businesses join together to create and share value with our guests.”
Spinach Bus Ventures team. Photo courtesy of Tulip Town
According to Washington State University Skagit County Extension, a 2018 estimate showed the annual Tulip Festival brings in an estimated 300,000 visitors and $65 million in revenue to the county.
The Tulip Festival’s Executive Director Cindy Verge has expressed deep concerns that the pandemic could kill the valley's entire tulip industry.
“We are choosing to innovate around the idea that this challenge could drive clarity and creativity instead of fear and paralysis,” said Miller. “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.”
The team has worked tirelessly rolling out several initiatives to save the farm, and they continue to tackle new challenges daily.
Tulip Town tulips boxed for nationwide shipping. Photo courtesy of Tulip Town
“Working in the fields as kids, we learned that ‘a little dirt don’t hurt,’ and you better show up every day, rain or shine, ready to do what was needed to be done or you didn’t get to come back,” said Angela Speer, managing partner, president, and chief operations officer of Tulip Town. “We rolled up our sleeves and dug in. We are determined to explore every conceivable way to safely share the bounty of the bloom this year in order to come back even stronger next year.”
“The world feels like it’s closing in on people. Yet, the Tulip Town team is relentlessly pushing back on the walls of fear and a status quo that just isn’t going to get the results anyone wants in what is shaping up to be a new reality for farms and communities like ours,” said Mount Vernon Mayor Jill Boudreau. “They have the talent, the team, and the trust to be able to come up with viable solutions to challenges that are bringing down entire industries in our country.”
The Tulip Town owners are hearing from community members—and beyond on a daily basis.
Tulip Town tulips for Skagit County Sheriff's Office. Photo courtesy of Tulip Town
“People are reaching out with encouraging words and telling us, ‘We’re so proud of you,’ ‘DON’T QUIT!’ and, ‘If anyone can survive this, it’s your team!’” said Rachael Ward Sparwasser, managing partner of Tulip Town. “It is incredibly humbling. The community support also helps to spur us on even further.”
Not only are we absolutely not over, but we’re also more energized than ever, said Miller.
“We have to constantly adapt to not only the elements and farming challenges and market forces but now, political and public perception forces in what could be the most emotionally charged environment of our lives. To say, ‘We’ve Got This’ is an understatement” he said.
Here are the steps the Tulip Town owners have taken to save their farm, and in part, the community they call home:
- Tulip Townie Membership- an opportunity to invest in the future of Tulip Town now and connect with the Tulip Town family throughout the Spring Bloom and Fall Planting in a new way.
- Color for Courage- Donate a bouquet of Tulip Town tulips to a hospital, nursing home, or other members of the Courage Community that could use the joy of tulips!
- Nationwide Fresh-Hand Picked Tulip Deliveries- 20 tulips (2 bouquets of 10 flowers each), packaged with care, and shipped to your door.
- Bulbs Shipped Nationwide- Put a little Tulip Town magic in your gardens and grounds this fall with our expertly curated catalog of tulip bulbs. We ship nationwide starting in September (tulip bulbs are planted in the fall when soil temperatures are lower).
- What’s at Stake- Tulip Town puts your name, or the name of a loved one out in its field, snaps a picture, and capture it in the What’s at Stake gallery on the Tulip Town website. At the end of the year, Tulip Town collects all the stakes to create a “What’s at Stake 2020 Memorial” in remembrance of your contribution to the future of Tulip Town.
- Photography Passes- Tulip Town in full bloom to yourself? A photographer’s dream come true as general admission has been suspended (due to COVID-19 concerns), and “artists providing services through streaming or other technology” are considered essential personnel.
- Community Partnerships- The best towns have the strongest sense of community and connection, and nowhere is that more apparent than Tulip Town. The COVID-19 crisis created an opportunity to reach out to new like-minded partners like Canlis in Seattle to offer tulips in their to-go meals and CSA boxes and an emergency approval by the Puget Sound Food Hub to allow Tulip Town to sell wholesale tulips into the Food Hub’s Bellingham and Seattle Metro markets.
- Tulip Town Roadside Stand- There is something special about rolling up to a roadside stand on a country road, and Tulip Town has captured that opportunity by opening up a roadside stand where customers can purchase fresh tulip bouquets, potted tulips, Tulip Town merchandise and even batch milled craft flour from Fairhaven Mill.
“Tulip Town has been a bright spot amidst this outbreak,” said Jennifer Fischer, Special Events & Corporate Relations Officer of Overlake Medical Center. “They’ve delivered hundreds of bouquets to our hospital over the last few weeks. It’s been wonderful to pass out the tulips and see the smiles on our caregivers’ faces. They’ve definitely brightened up their days.
Tulip Town tulips for Overlake Hospital. Photo courtesy of Tulip Town
“We need to meet people where they’re at now, and that means changing the way we feed people during this pandemic,” said Mark Canlis of Canlis, a landmark family-owned Seattle restaurant for three generations. “One of the ways we’re doing this is with our Canlis Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes brimming with the best ingredients from our favorite farmers. The addition of tulips from Tulip Town not only reminds us of our childhoods visiting the Valley and walking through the rows of tulips, but it makes us proud to partner with like-minded businesses giving it their all.”
Tulip Town partnerships are sprouting daily amidst the pandemic.
“Our community is strong, and our strength grows more each day as we band together,” said Speer. “A former high school classmate of ours is an accomplished painter who is setting up her art in our barn. A local fireplace and grill store in West Mount Vernon owned by the father of one of our classmates reached out and offered to buy a bunch of signs for our roadside stand.”
Farming in Western Washington is at a tipping point, said Miller.
“In communities like ours here in Skagit Valley that identify as ag communities, it’s never been more important to get and keep traction with both our urban customers and keep critical ag support businesses going,” said Miller. “We rely on the expertise of our local disease control experts at Wilbur Ellis to keep our flowers vibrant. Skagit Farmers Supply is a locally owned co-op that supplies us with a lot of our essentials. They’re going to feature our story in their June newsletter. Farmers Equipment Company down the road services all of our equipment and are absolutely critical to our success. They are constantly checking on us to see if they can help at all.”
Photo courtesy of Tulip Town
Standing in the middle of the 30-acre tulip farm, the team reflects on how far they’ve come in just a few weeks, and how committed they are to do whatever it takes to save their farm.
“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,” said Ward Sparwasser. “We believe the best outcomes spring from the right combination of focus, grit, and skin-in-the-game, and we bring that mindset to all that we do.”
“Our tulips, they aren’t about us. They are about all of us. We know that together we will turn these challenges into opportunities,” said Miller. “It might take a village to raise a child, but it’s going to take a community to save the tulips.”
For more information:
Tulip Town
15002 Bradshaw Road
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
360.424.8152
[email protected]
tuliptown.com
