Therese Michels of Aurora loves gardening and welcomed the opportunity to network on Saturday with likeminded people at the annual Seed Swap at the Santori Public Library in downtown Aurora.
“I love this and last year when I came I couldn’t believe the crowd,” she said Saturday. “There were a lot of people here, so evidently, it’s more than me who enjoys gardening.”
The annual event, held at all three branches of the Aurora Public Library, allows “community members to exchange seeds, meet fellow gardeners and connect with local experts, including master gardeners from the University of Illinois extension,” according to a press release from the library.
Cailin Cullen, genealogy and community history librarian for the Aurora Public Library, said the swap has been held for almost a decade and began “at the West Branch before we started doing it throughout all the library locations around 2020.”
“I’ve been doing this over the past several years, and people are always so grateful and so surprised that they can just take seeds for free and it’s always sort of joyful because of the atmosphere. People are getting excited about spring,” she said. “This year, we are trying to make it more of a family event.”
Last year, Cullen noted that “community organizations were invited to the event,” something that the library “wanted to continue to grow.”
“These are all organizations that we think people who are interested in gardening would be interested in connecting with,” she said. “So, in addition to connecting to the U. of I. extension, we have the park district, Charity Blooms, Friends of the Fox and the Aurora Farmers Market. There will be lot of folks doing activities in front of people.”
Seeds are donated from several different companies as well as from individual gardeners who do their own swap. Leftover seeds are donated to the Marie Wilkinson Community Garden in Aurora.
Cullen acknowledged there was a surge in gardening interest following the COVID-19 pandemic and that seed swaps held since then suggest that interest has continued.
Aurora resident Kallie Pifko looks for native plants Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, during the annual Seed Swap event at the Santori Public Library in downtown Aurora. (David Sharos/For The Beacon-News)
“There has been a revival and continued interest. Anecdotally, it does seem when I talk to people that they started during the pandemic and they are still showing up,” she said. “There definitely is some experimentation each year as all of our seeds are donated. We’re not putting out just tomatoes and cucumbers but all different kinds of things.”
Catherine Cyko of Aurora brought some of her own seeds to the event at the Santori Library that she offered to the swap including milkweed and basil and cilantro.
“This is my first time making a donation. I had to plan to bring something in and we just started saving our seeds last fall,” she said. “I grow all my own plants to set out in the spring. I’ve been gardening 40 to 50 years. My favorite thing to grow is flowers. The best things I’ve learned are that every year is an experiment, make sure you don’t give up and that you compost and amend your soil.”
Kallie Pifko of Aurora checked out some plants at the event and said she likes growing the native pollinators.
“I think this Seed Swap is wonderful. I actually live closer to the Eola (library) branch and we went there last year but there weren’t as many seeds like this, so it’s nice to meet more people,” she said Saturday. “I got into this about five years and I like to connect with people and grow and eat your own food.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
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