Archives for March 2015

Thank you so much Hyannis Rotary Club for your generous offer of a booth at your 57th annual Home and Garden Show. Not only did we have a fun time, but it turned out to be more of a blessing than we could ever have imagined! Mostly everyone who passed by our booth was captured by our brilliant display of tea cup and petite “gratitude bouquets” and stopped to learn more about our charitable organization. We made a lot of friends, many who are excited to join our Flower Angel team. We are especially grateful for everyone’s support and kind words. Your donations will help to keep our mission going strong and we thank everyone for their contribution. A generous couple donated their grandmother’s gorgeous tea cup collection. Trader Joes and Shaws donated a truck load of flowers today and our 28 Flower Angel volunteers joyfully gathered together, as we do every Monday morning. Our lovely 127 repurposed arrangements were delivered by Mara, Community Connections and Cape-Abilities Flower Angel teams. Patients in Mayflower, Yarmouth, Cape Winds, Hyannis, Royal Cotuit Nursing Home and Neighborhood Nutrition, Hyannis. were delighted to receive this random act of love and moment of kindness by our special Flower Angels. We were happy to include our donors and the Hyannis Rotary Club on every bouquet.

Flowers + Flower Angels = Lots of smiles!

Hyannis Rotarian volunteers making arrangements for our first official delivery in May 2014.

Flower Angels February 2015…6000 bouquets later!

Flower Angels in their glory at the 57th Hyannis Rotary Club Home and Garden Show March 2015

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March 13 was the 1 year anniversary of our first flower delivery to Seashore Point, Provincetown in honor of my mother, Helen Carter. Sometimes I feel her smiling down on me for creating such a beautiful organization with the soul purpose of serving others. Our many amazing Flower Angel volunteers have the same feeling in their hearts for their mom’s as well. For 20 months, my mom was a patient in SSP nursing home and I visited her daily. Each time I delivered big bags of candies and goodies, it brought her great joy to fill up little Dixie cups and distribute them to others. It was there I discovered very few residents have many visitors, if any at all. Using my small inheritance, Flower Angels USA, was born-a non profit charity with the purpose of delivering random acts of love to patients who have been confined to nursing homes simply because they have no other choices. At first I purchased flowers and vases. Friends came to help make the bouquets. Then Trader Joes generously offered to donate their flowers. Wonderful and talented Flower Angel volunteers began streaming in…Kathleen T. was our first and has been dedicated ever since! Our vase drive quickly produced 6000 vases! Once the wedding season was in its glory, brides and event planners from large wedding venues began donating their magnificent centerpieces. We were on our way! What began in Provincetown, quickly spread throughout the Cape bringing sunshine, kindness and smiles to many. We soon began receiving help from our awesome differently-abled communities. They happily collected flowers from Trader Joes and eventually from several Shaws Supermarkets, too. Our workshop was blooming with gorgeous flowers everywhere! In November, Cape Abilities and Community Connections Flower Angels teams began assisting us with the deliveries. The patients loved seeing their smiling faces and our delightful special assistants thoroughly enjoyed delivering the flowers…a partnership made in heaven!

Recently, 210 bouquets were delivered to Seashore Point, Provincetown, Rosewood Harwich, Cape Regency, Centerville, Eagle Pond, Dennis, EPOCH Harwich, Windsor nursing homes, Yarmouth. and to Beacon Hospice patients in nursing homes Cape-wide. The vibrant spring bouquets also brightened the hearts and dinner tables of Neighborhood Nutrition, a wonderful charity committed to feeding the less fortunate at Faith Assembly of God church in Hyannis.

We need your help!

Flower Angels USA is supported solely through private donations from individuals like you. We are currently seeking corporate sponsorships and grants. A tax deductible donation of any amount will make an immediate difference in the impact of our mission, help pay for our operating expenses and provide part-time paid jobs for our three differently-abled employees, Tabby, Kevin and Mara. Together we can deliver random acts of love and kindness to others.

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Meet Sandy, one of our shining star dedicated Flower Angels. Unless she is snowed in, she never misses an opportunity to jump in wherever needed. A retired social worker, Sandy is kind-hearted and most passionate about our Flower Angels mission. She collects flowers from Shaw Markets, loves to make arrangements and deliver the bouquets to the patients in the nursing homes especially Bourne Manor, one of her favorites. The patients are always delighted to see her smiling face and receive some floral love. Sandy is a burst of sunshine for us all!

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Company Reuses Flowers To Brighten Patients’ Day

by MARY PETIET

Suzanne Carter says she has a philosophy for living: “Be the miracle in the life for others.”

The fifth-generation Provincetown native is true to her words.

In March, Ms. Carter launched a nonprofit company that collects day-old flowers from markets, weddings, and church services, arranges them into bouquets, and delivers them to people in nursing homes, hospice facilities, and hospitals across the Cape.

Many of the volunteers who do the delivering are from Community Connection and Cape Abilites, organizations that provide work and volunteer opportunities for people with disabilities.

“It really brightens the day and makes me feel better,” Bourne Manor resident Christine Gardner said after she received her flowers. “More importantly, I was happy the Flower Angels work with Cape Abilities, as my own son has special needs.”

“We are being the miracle,” Ms. Carter said. “We are bringing sunshine to the residents and we are the miracle for the ‘differently-abled,’ who are learning skills while giving back to the community.”

Ms. Carter has worked as both a successful businesswoman and a registered nurse. She explained that she got the idea for Flower Angels during her daily visits to her mother in a nursing home, where she noticed that many people never had company. She began to bring them presents, such as small Dixie Cups filled with candy from BJ’s. She would push her mother along in her wheelchair and together they would distribute the gifts.

The idea of delivering flowers in the same spirit came during a visit to Florida, Ms. Carter said.

“I volunteered with my friend, Karen, for a wonderful group that was taking flowers that would otherwise be thrown away, remaking them into beautiful bouquets, and delivering them to patients in hospitals. I saw how a visit from someone delivering a bouquet could make such a difference,” she said.

“I was happily retired,” she said, “but sometimes the next chapter finds you. That’s how Flower Angels was born.”

When her mother died, Ms. Carter used her inheritance to launch Flower Angels.

“When we first went in with bouquets,” Ms. Carter remembered, “people said there must be some mistake, I never get any flowers.” So she made cards explaining the Flower Angels. “First they are shocked and then they are really happy,” she said, “They love that this kindness is done for them.”

Flower Angels gets its flowers as donations from Trader Joe’s and Shaw’s.

At the beginning Ms. Carter explained that she bought the flowers from Trader Joe’s, but as they realized her mission, they began to donate day-old flowers. Shaw’s joined in soon after. An additional source of flowers is brides who pass along their blossoms after their big days.

Ms. Carter explained her use of volunteers from Community Connection and Cape Abilities, saying, “I wanted to connect the ‘differently-abled’ community to the elderly community.”

She describes the structure as providing “flowers for the elderly, while teaching skills to the disabled. Having the differently-abled serve the elderly is a marriage made in heaven. It helps everybody and everybody loves it.”

She never thought the initiative would become as popular as it has.

The first Flower Angels delivery went out in March 2014, and deliveries, which Ms. Carter started to count in mid-May, are well beyond the 5,000 mark.

“The idea has caught on,” she said, “I have a list of people who want to start their own Flower Angels.”

She has trademarked and copyrighted the name Flower Angels USA and is currently working on streamlining the concept through the development of an operational manual that will enable the nonprofit charity to reach out to other communities.

“The Oxford, Massachusetts, high school will open a Flower Angels for their special needs students at the end of January,” she said. “They will learn to collect, arrange and deliver flowers. They’ll learn skills while making people happy.”

Ms. Carter said people from places as far away as Virginia and Hawaii have come to learn how she does her work.

Flower Angels elicit a powerful response when they deliver their gifts. Testimony from a recent recipient posted on the Flower Angels Facebook site says, “A note to thank you very much for the flowers you brought to my husband’s room last week at Eagle Pond. Fortunately, I was there at the time. I know the flowers are to brighten the day of the patient (which they certainly did) but they also brightened my day as well. The flowers will fade but the thoughts and feeling of compassion and kindness they represent never will. In between all of the dismal TV and radio news, when I need to smile, I remember the flowers and all of you wonderful people who do this. You are, indeed, all Angels!”

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