Regina Floral Conservatory at risk of losing funding
The City of Regina’s proposed 2026 budget was released on Nov. 20 and the Regina Floral Conservatory, which has been around for over 30 years, is amongst those at risk of being decommissioned. When the news broke, Regina residents flocked to social media to express their disappointment with the proposed budget cuts. The Carillon recently spoke to Regina Garden Associates’ vice-president Mariana Hinojosa Centella and member-at-large Jolene Norleen, both of whom are also volunteers turned board members.
A place for all
Norleen’s relationship with the conservatory started in 2015. 10 years later, she can be found on Tuesday mornings working on maintenance duties such as watering, deadheading, and looking at bug conditions.
While Hinojosa Centella is early on in her position on the board, she was a frequent visitor of the conservatory. As a newcomer from Mexico, she felt that she had discovered a little paradise in Regina. After almost a year, the warmth from the conservatory and the people working behind the scenes had pushed Hinojosa Centella to join the board.
“That’s one of the things that really attracted me to stay. For the very first time I really felt welcomed,” she said. “I [felt that] nobody had anything negative to say about me being a foreigner, on the contrary, they kind of embrace that.”
These two are not the only ones who have fond memories of the place; both Norleen and Hinojosa Centella described the conservatory as multigenerational. “We have full circle moments, like parents who came here as a kid then got married and now they bring their kids,” beamed Hinojosa Centella.
While the city owns the property and maintains the building, the charitable organization, Regina Garden Associates, or the volunteers run the programs.”
Aid for mental health
She also relayed the stories of widowers who find solitude and warmth by coming to the conservatory. “There was this gentleman that would come. He explained this was [the] place that he fell in love with his wife,” explained Hinojosa Centella. “She had recently passed away, but this was still a place where he could feel connected to her.”
The conservatory is also known for aiding in mental health issues. With the harsh winter that Regina residents have to endure, many see the conservatory as a place to escape and experience nature. “We’ve got a mental health provider [who] responded on our Facebook that she comes here because she has difficulty with the length and cold of winter,” said Norleen. “She says a lot of her clients also come here for their mental health and safety.”
Membership on the rise
This year, the conservatory experienced a record breaking increase in new members, staff, and visitors. Norleen explained that they had 23,000 visitors come through their doors at the end of June. “Our Little Gardeners [pre-school] program was up by 26 per cent, our rentals were up 37 per cent, events were up 25 per cent, and Friday lunch hours were up 21 per cent,” she proclaimed. “We’ve broken records for attendance on several occasions, when we had the Easter Bunny hunt. Our highest day was 311 people in here.”
The Conservatory also offers a yoga program for which a ticket system had to be introduced, despite being free of charge, because of the amount of people that had registered. Hinojosa Centella wrote to the Carillon that what makes the Regina Floral Conservatory unique in the city is that it operates on a free-admission and donation-based model. While the city owns the property and maintains the building, the charitable organization, Regina Garden Associates, or the volunteers run the programs.
Becoming a member right now [is] a functional way to help us out in this, as well as continuing to run to our councillors and showing how this place has impacted you..” -Mariana Hinojosa Centella
Community in support
After the proposed budget cuts, the Regina community showed an incredible amount of support for the conservatory. “The board members have been getting phone calls,” said Norleen. “We were at a strategic planning session when we got the news. [We] posted something on social media on Thursday and by Sunday, we had 2900 shares, 2200 reactions, and comments.”
Norleen shared that counselors have also been getting phone calls and emails due to the letter writing campaign the conservatory has initiated. “The mayor just put up an online interview on Facebook. He actually mentioned the floral conservatory, so that leads us to believe that he’s been getting a lot of information from there,” she stated. Since then, the conservatory has seen a spike of 170 new volunteers. At the morning this interview was conducted, they calculated a total of 429 members.
“I just wanted to point out that you don’t need to be a volunteer to become a member,” said Hinojosa Centella. “I will invite anybody that reads or hears that becoming a member right now [is] a functional way to help us out in this, as well as continuing to run to our councillors and showing how this place has impacted you.”
Regina residents are not the only ones who have shown their support for the conservatory. Many non-residents wrote on their social media seeking answers for how to help. This shows that the Conservatory’s doors have welcomed many groups coming from different parts of the province and the world. “We’ve been going through our guest book […] we had people last year who came [from] 143 different locations in Saskatchewan, and we had 103 unique locations outside of Saskatchewan within Canada,” claimed Norleen. “We had 16 unique locations in the U.S. and 28 unique locations outside of North America.” Both Hinojosa Centella and Norleen have heard from various visitors that they make it a point to visit the Conservatory whenever they come to Regina. “We had a couple from out of town. [They] booked a hotel just to come to our yoga class in the morning,” shared Norleen.
Impact of shutting down
When asked what the impact would be if the proposed closure were to take place, they detailed that mental health and green spaces that are important to the community would be lost. They described a sense of fulfillment that the space brings to different demographics, especially the senior volunteers who come to the Conservatory as a way of preventing feelings of social isolation.
Despite the rocky situation, they expressed gratitude towards the city for providing the conservatory a building and for their support over the years. “We’re confident they will continue to be really good allies in the future,” said Hinojosa Centella. “We’re both thankful for the support and hope that support continues when the decision is made, that they make the right choice not only for us but [for] the city.”
While there is a plan for a new building for the conservatory, they are hoping that the current one is able to remain operational until then.
