Joe Van de Wetering, the Garden Festival’s founder, outside Peconic Bay Medical Center on Friday. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)
When Joe Van de Wetering told Central Suffolk’s board of trustees he could earn the hospital $100,000 through an on-campus plant sale, they didn’t believe him.
They rejected the idea, but a year later, after some deliberations, the board approved the project — with some restrictions, however.
His plan to feature a Battle of the Bands?
It would have been too loud, he was told.
His pitch to sell shellfish and other farm goods?
The health department would never go for it.
Still, he organized the first Garden Festival in 1995.
It raised just $7,000.
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