Trade Secrets: a glamorous garden event with a deeper mission

Tucked away on Porter Street in downtown Lakeville, Project SAGE is an unassuming building from a street view. But cross the threshold a week before Trade Secrets — one of the region’s biggest gardening events, long associated with Martha Stewart and glamorous plants of all varieties — and you’ll find a bustling world of employees and volunteers getting ready for the organization’s most important event of the year.

“It’s not usually like this,’ laughed Project SAGE director Kristen van Ginhoven. “But with Trade Secrets just around the corner, it’s definitely like this.”

Van Ginhoven points to towers of boxes containing event programs, various ribbons, elegant decor and stacks of magazines, all in preparation for the event.

Project SAGE will celebrate its 26th year hosting Trade Secrets, but it’s so much more than a garden event.

“It’s a fundraiser for domestic violence prevention and intervention,” van Ginhoven said. “Anybody who attends knows they’re supporting a really meaningful and important cause.”

The fundraiser accounts for at least 30 percent of the organization’s overall budget, she said, and attracts around 3,000 people from across the region each year, creating an unmatched opportunity for Project SAGE to share its mission and generate support.

The event, though expensive to produce, generates enough income to significantly support Project SAGE’s direct services and prevention services.

Officials said a wave of new underwriters have emerged this year.

“We’re very grateful, because we live in a time when funding is uncertain,” van Ginhoven said.

Hundreds of copies of the annual Trade Secrets guide sat at Project SAGE headquarters, ready for distribution at the event. The book doubles as a domestic violence resource, complete with warning signs, myth-busting information and scripts for difficult conversations.

Volunteers will be present throughout the event to connect with community members. Each volunteer must be certified as a domestic violence counselor in order to work with Project SAGE.

“It means they can help us drive clients, move clients, take them to appointments or the grocery store,” van Ginhoven said.

Project SAGE officials said education about domestic violence should start early. The organization has developed a comprehensive curriculum spanning early childhood through grade 12 and visits schools throughout the region. The class of 2026 will be the first graduating class at Housatonic Valley Regional High School to have received all four years of training from Project SAGE.

Martha Stewart signing her new book at Trade Secrets 2025.Christine Bates

The organization’s partnerships extend throughout the region and include on-site training in schools and nonprofit organizations, including the Sharon Playhouse. Community support also goes directly to Project SAGE, including a recently donated array of colorful gift bags bearing positing affirmations and filled with toiletries and basic necessities from students at the Frederick Gunn School in Washington, Connecticut.

The people who visit Project SAGE have often left uncomfortable or dangerous situations and leave without any belongings.

“Some of them have nothing,” van Ginhoven said. “They just show up because they had the courage to leave.”

Project SAGE staff say many referrals come through local hospitals, police and sister agencies.

The organization serves people in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York.

With the stress of event planning mounting, van Ginhoven spent a “previous life” preparing for this exact moment. She spent 30 working at the intersection of arts and activism, having co-founded WAM Theatre, a Lenox-based organization focused on stories and issues affecting those who self-identify as women and girls. During her tenure, WAM donated $100,000 to 25 local and global organizations working toward gender equity in areas such as girls’ education, teen pregnancy prevention, gender-based violence, sexual trafficking awareness and midwife training.

“I love the adrenaline of putting on a show,” van Ginhoven said with a laugh. With the help of volunteers and organizers, she said she isn’t bothered by the stress.

“The show will go on,” she said.