Area residents are invited to celebrate the ninth annual Daffodil Day on Belle Isle and support Daffodils4Detroit, a project aimed at improving quality of life in Detroit, at a lunch event Wednesday, April 18, at the historic Detroit Yacht Club. 

Registration starts at 11 a.m., and the program begins at noon. Highlights of the event include speaker Lynden B. Miller, founder of The Daffodil Project in New York City, which inspired Daffodils4Detroit, and an opportunity to learn about the new Lake Muskoday Accessible Playground. The playground, just north of the Belle Isle Nature Center, features specially selected equipment that allows all family members of varying capabilities to enjoy it.

Luncheon tickets begin at $45, and reservations will be accepted until April 10. For reservations, please use the Daffodil Day registration form. Those who cannot attend but would like to make a contribution may use the same form. Each $10 donation buys about 50 bulbs for Daffodils4Detroit.

Members of the Michigan Division of the Woman’s National Farm & Garden Association, who selected daffodils as they symbolize hope and rebirth, started Daffodils4Detroit in 2010 as a beautification and economic revitalization project for Belle Isle and Detroit. Their initial goal was to plant, on Belle Isle, one daffodil bulb for each Detroit resident, about 650,000 bulbs.

Today a committee of about 15 volunteers directs the project and works in collaboration with partners from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Parks and Recreation horticulture staff, the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory, the Belle Isle Conservancy and the city of Detroit. Hundreds of volunteers from corporations, nonprofit organizations, schools, families and individual gardeners plant the daffodil bulbs each year. About 350 people attend the annual Daffodil Day luncheon fundraiser, and others donate in honor and memory of friends and loved ones.

The Belle Isle daffodils now are an eagerly anticipated rite of spring for many metro Detroiters. In recognition of the efforts of the Woman’s National Farm & Garden Association, the Detroit City Council passed a resolution declaring the third Wednesday in April as the official annual Detroit Daffodil Day.

This year Daffodils4Detroit is expanding onto the mainland to plant 4 million bulbs throughout neighborhood parks to represent the metropolitan region’s residents and support the local initiatives in Detroit neighborhoods.

Learn more about Belle Isle Park at www.belleislepark.org.