Village Chronicles

The award recognizes an individual for outstanding leadership and selfless commitment to moving the community forward through actions that reflect AIB’s mission to revitalize communities with an emphasis on the use of plants and flowers.

The media release from AIB headquarters cites what most residents already know. In our city, “you’ll find Vivian Lund, quietly maintaining the town’s gardens in public spaces as if they were her own. You may see her pulling weeds or dividing and replanting perennials at the cemetery, veterans’ memorial, or city museum.”

This great lady was Warrenville’s mayor for 20 years following a successful career teaching elementary students for 21 years.

Affectionately nicknamed the “Energizer Bunny,” Lund is admired by the community “for her dedicated service, visionary eye, example of servant leadership and caring for her neighborhoods,” says Lucy Hawke. “She has demonstrated that one person can make a difference by just doing what one can do to be a positive influence within your hometown. We are grateful for her attitude of can-do and positive hard work.”

“We are absolutely thrilled that Vivian received this awesome award,” said Dorothy Deer, president of Warrenville in Bloom. “She has such intuitive foresight to know what needs to be done and a gentle way that draws people to her who willingly work alongside her with the same dedication, zeal and pride in our hometown.”

Lund has been involved in Warrenville plantings and the environment since the 1960s when she and her third-grade students planted flowering crabapple trees along the railroad grade west of Batavia Rd. (before it was the Prairie Path). She also instituted the first big cleanup when she had her 32 students bring brown grocery bags to pick up trash along the same abandoned railroad grade. They were overwhelmed with the mountain of garbage they pulled out, including a bed spring and tires.

While mayor, she encouraged Jim Kleinwachter to start the very first DuPage River cleanup that created such mountains of trash, they got the city’s garbage contractor to haul it to the Blackwell landfill. Also as mayor, Lund generated the many volunteers who helped plant trees and gardens as well as install the Millennial Gateway sign at Czerny Park.

While flowers and trees exhibit beautification, Lund supports all other facets that AIB uses in its city judging, such as historical preservation, environmental and landscape issues, and community involvement.

Lund is a big proponent of volunteerism. She says, “Warrenville still has so much untapped volunteer potential. I believe if you can tap into someone’s passion, give them some encouragement, they’ll get involved and become an active part of their community.”

Lund’s husband, Dwight, is a horticultural educator and dedicated AIB judge, mentoring and evaluating communities in the AIB competition. Dwight and Vivian are active gardeners and their home was on Warrenville’s Fifth Annual Garden Walk last year that brought people in from five surrounding communities.

National AIB created the award in 2009 in memory of John R. Holmes, the late CEO of OFAThe Association of Horticulture Professionals, who died unexpectedly. Holmes was an AIB board member and officer since AIB’s inception, an advocate for city beautification and believer in the power of flowers and plants to change lives.