Mimi's Roses

From the Bread & Roses Newsletter Archives:

 Bread & Roses Founder's NAme Graces Golden Hybrid Tea Rose

By Paul Liberatore

A rose named in honor of the late Mimi Fariña, founder os Bread & Roses, was dedicated on a Saturday evening in October at a gala dinner hosted by the Marin Rose Society at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael. 

A limted number of the MImi Fariña Roses are available as bare-root plants for $25, of which $10 goes to Bread & Roses. For information on how to order, call Bread & Roses at (415) 945-7120.

"It's appropriate to name a rose after someone who was a rose," said Cassandra Flipper, executive director of Corte Madera-based Bread & Roses. Fariña founded Bread & Roses in 1974 to bring free, live entertainment to people shut away in institutions, from hospital and senior centers to youth facilities and prisons. Fariña died of cancer in 2001. 

In all, Bread & Roses produces 500 shows a year in eight counties entertaining more than 24.000 people. The Marin Rose Society was also founded in 1974. The Mimi Fariña Rose is a hybdrid tea rose from England with a golden center and creamy white petals. 

"The rose has a golden center and Mimi had a golden heart," said Rose Society President Joan Goff. 

Excerpted from an article in the Marin Independent Journal October 15, 2005. 

Mimi Fariña hybrid tea rose | Source 

Mimi's Birthday Rose April 30, 2020. Photo by Susan Hyde-Greene

The Marin Rose Society dedicated a hearty, fragrant rose in her honor in 2005. The Mimi Fariña Rose is a hybrid tea rose from England with a golden center and creamy white petals. It's the perfect tribute to Mimi’s memory and her beautiful gift of live music to thousands of audiences isolated in Bay Area institutions. "Small art and love and beauty, their drudging spirits knew. Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too!" -From the song Bread and Roses, words by James Oppenheim and music by Mimi Fariña (2016)

Mimi Fariña hybrid tea rose