Youth Opportunities
🌱 The American Daylily Society is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of gardeners. Our youth programs offer a place to connect, learn, and explore the beauty of daylilies through special groups, newsletters, and educational resources.
Youth Group
AHS offers a Youth Group through the members-only Portal, designed exclusively for our youth members. To participate, simply log in to the Portal using your membership number and password. If you experience any issues signing in, please contact the Youth Chairperson for assistance.
Note: While the group is monitored, parents remain responsible for overseeing their child’s internet activity.
Youth News
Youth News is a special newsletter just for AHS youth members, published twice a year (Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter). If you do not receive your copy, please reach out to the Youth Chairperson.
Educational Resources
A downloadable PowerPoint presentation, The Exciting World of Daylilies, is available to help introduce daylilies to youth groups. This resource is perfect for presentations, classrooms, or garden club activities.
AHS Youth Chairperson
The AHS Youth Chairperson position is currently vacant. [email protected]
Youth Awards and Scholarship Resources
Established in 1996, the Christine Erin Stamile Youth Award was initiated by Patrick and Grace Stamile to honor the memory of their daughter Christine. She was a Life Member of the AHS who once expressed the thought that a Life Membership gives, to its holder, daylilies for that person’s “whole life.” In keeping with this thought, the award presently funds one Life Membership in the AHS each year to a qualified AHS Youth Member.
The rules of eligibility and application are as follows: Applicant must be an AHS youth member and must have held AHS youth status for two consecutive years prior the year the application is being submitted. The applicant must grow and maintain a personal collection of daylilies; no minimum number of cultivars is required.
The applicant must submit the following materials:
- An essay of any length, in the Youth Member’s own words, explaining how the collection began.
- A statement, in the Youth Member’s own words, telling of the personal enjoyment of growing daylilies.
- Ten photographs from the Youth Member’s own collection. These photographs must include:
- one example of an individual bloom.
- one example of a clump.
- one example of a garden view which includes a part of the Youth Member’s collection.
The remaining photographs may be of the Youth Member’s own choosing. Instructions for applying are published in the Winter issue of The Daylily Journal and the fall/winter issue of the Youth News newsletter. All material (essay, statement, and photographs) should be mailed or e-mailed to the current AHS Youth Committee Chairman, between January 1 and March 31 of the year in which the award selection will be announced. If requested, all material will be returned upon completion of the judging. The AHS Youth Committee members will evaluate the entries and select the winning applicant by vote. The winner will be notified and the award will be presented at the AHS National Convention.
Bertie Ferris Scholarship
- A $1,000.00 scholarship will be awarded annually with the exception of two $1,000.00 scholarships being offered if there was no recipient the previous year.
- Applicant must be an AHS youth member or an AHS member not more than 19 years old. In either case, the applicant must have held AHS youth status for two consecutive years prior the year the application is being submitted.
- Applicant must be one of the following:
- a) Graduating senior in high school entering college, university or technical school.
- b) High school student enrolled in a dual credit program.
- The student’s future course of studies must be in Horticulture, Botany, Plant Physiology or other plant sciences.
- The applicant is required to write a letter giving the reason for applying for the scholarship and include the applicant’s future plans.
- Applicant must submit the completed application and letter, by mail or email, to the Youth Committee chairman between January 1 and March 31 of the year the scholarship is to be awarded.
- Applicant’s membership will be verified by the Youth Chair and the AHS Youth Committee will review the applications and vote for the winning candidate(s).
- The names of the winner(s) will be announced at the National Convention and published in The Daylily Journal and the Youth News.
- Money will be sent directly to the winner’s college, university or technical school.
Mabel Matthews Scholarship
- The scholarship amount will be announced each year and will be based on the interest on the balance of funds in the endowment account, and donations that are made to the fund.
- The deadline for applications is April 1.
- The scholarship may be awarded to a maximum of two individuals each year.
- In the event a scholarship is not awarded in a given year, the funds will be eligible for the following year.
- Eligible to any American Daylily Society member (no age requirement) with three or more years of membership.
- Eligible for members seeking a bachelor degree or postgraduate degree in any college or university to include on-line entities, provided it is accredited in the applicant’s chosen field.
- While the scholarship is without restriction to a specific field of study, preference will be given to horticulture, botany, chemistry, and landscape architecture.
- An applicant must demonstrate service to an ADS club or at an ADS regional level.
- The scholarship shall be given annually, subject to the selection of an eligible applicant.
- The recipient must maintain a grade point equivalent of 3.0 based on 4.0 system.
- The scholarship may be given to an individual recipient for up to a maximum of six years.
- Mabel Matthew Scholarship Application
Youth Activities Ideas and Inspiration
For ideas and inspiration, visit the Youth Activities page on the AHS members-only Portal. You’ll find the link under the “AHS Files” tab in the navigation menu. Please note, you must be logged into the Portal to access this page.
AHS Guidelines for Clubs and Individuals to Interest Youth in Daylilies
Click here to view the document version of the AHS Guidelines for Clubs and Individuals on Engaging Youth in Daylilies.
- Assign a mentor to your youth members. Mom or dad may be involved in daylilies, but asking another club person to be a mentor would reinforce the daylily connection.
- Clubs could invite a youth group (4-H, Scout etc.) to participate in a club function. One club invited a Brownies Troop to help at the annual plant sale. It was a positive experience for both. The members loved the young children. In turn the children had a good time. They learned about daylilies and each received a cultivar. The leftover plants from the sale were given to the troop to plant at their meeting place. The girls also earned a plant badge for their effort.
- A club could pay the AHS membership dues for a youth interested in daylilies. The cost is only $10.
- Clubs could sponsor a youth to a Regional Meeting or to the AHS National Convention by covering the youth registration fee.
- In order to encourage youth members to attend Regional Meetings and AHS Conventions, sponsoring clubs could offer reduced fees.
- At Regional Meetings and AHS National Conventions, have all the youth members ride a bus together. Encourage youth members to serve as bus captains. At the banquet have a table(s) reserved just for them and their parents if space permits.
- If a club can, subsidize or offer free of charge, trips, meals etc. to the youth members when they attend the club’s functions.
- Depending on the number of youths attending your meeting, special activities just for them can be initiated. The activity would depend on the age of the youths.
- During plant sales and auctions, the youths make excellent spotters and runners.
- Ask a youth to write for your newsletter. A youth member could be assigned a garden for the Regional Meeting report, or he could write about a local garden visit. See that a youth in your region is made Junior Editor of the regional newsletter.
- Include articles and pictures about the youth members in your local club newsletter and the regional newsletter.
- Have an auction only for the youths. Give them daylily dollars. Solicit good plants (plants of value) beforehand from your club members.
- Encourage the youths to take Garden Judge Workshops and Exhibition Judge Clinics and cover the fees.
- Encourage youth members to participate in an AHS show. Show them how to groom their daylilies.
- Visit the youth members’ gardens. They, too, are proud to grow daylilies and share their gardens.
- Look around your community. If your club can afford it, establish a scholarship(s) for youths involved in horticulture.
- Buy an AHS membership for a school offering a horticulture program.
- Contact and work with your region Youth Liaison in devising projects for the youths at regional meetings.
- Clubs and individuals can make contributions to the AHS Youth General Fund. This fund is used to give scholarships to AHS Youth members. Instructions for applying for the AHS Bertie Ferris Youth Scholarship are on the AHS Web Page under Youth Page, in the Winter issue of The Daylily Journal, and in the Fall/Winter issue of Youth News, the AHS publication for youth members.
- If youth members visit your garden, give them a daylily to take home.
- Contribute to the Christine Erin Stamile Youth Fund. It provides one AHS Life Membership to a youth. See guidelines on how to apply in the Judging Daylily Handbook, Section A: Chapter A1-Personal Awards (A1-3), the Winter issue of The Daylily Journal, and in the Fall/Winter issue of Youth News.
- Make up special goody bags for youth members who attend regional meetings. Include a disposable camera, candies, a pen and pad, a key chain, visor, etc.
- Share your daylily journals, your catalogues, your regional newsletter, and other pertinent material with a youth.
- Help a youth “build” a daylily bed, hybridize, gather seeds, grow seedlings, etc.
- Take the youth with you on visits to daylily gardens.
- Be creative. Science projects, for example, are a great way to introduce youth to daylilies.
- Remember to capture all those wonderful images of youth participation.
- Contact the AHS Youth Chair and the Editor to disseminate information on the national level. Names of all AHS officers, staff, and special chairs can be found in all issues of The Daylily Journal.