FLOWER EXTRAVAGANZA

The flowers from two weddings at the Biltmore Estate were both creations of Stacey at the Bloom Room.  Totally spectacular!  Just look at the photos of some of the flowers in the truck.  I picked up from a wedding at the Conservatory on Saturday morning, but kept most of those for Sunday morning, to be added to another wedding from Deerpark.  Two huge buckets of flowers from Saturday made their way to Brooks-Howell and they were stunned by the beauty of them - I love doing that!  I walk in with buckets full of beautiful flowers, get lots of kudos for it when all I did was go pick them up and drive them over.  This is a job you gotta love!

Flowers from both weddings, and more even from The Fresh Market, were distributed to Care Partners Rehab Hospital (shown here), as well as the Solace Center, McCune Assisted Living Center and The Laurels of Summit Ridge.  At Rehab we had a Hands On Asheville project and Clare and Leslie showed up to help.  Clare and I did the pick up and managed to get them all in the pickup.  And you can see some of the arrangements on the cart as Leslie wheels them around to the rooms at Rehab.  They give the patients and the staff a real boost.  To see more photos and to find out who are new hairy volunteer is, click here.

FESTIVE FLOWERS

We had a great variety of flowers to work with today.  Two weddings from The Bloom Room, flowers from Your Vase or Mine and from The Fresh Market provided us with color, beauty and interest.  We couldn’t name all the flowers but it didn’t slow any of us down.  I mostly took photos while the other five volunteers set about making over 60 arrangements for the patients and staff at Care Partners Rehab Hospital.  Photo on the left shows everyone who helped, Sharon and her mother Jo, Cindy, Larissa and Elizabeth.  The photo on the left shows them wheeling their cart down the hall, having already handed out many arrangements.

Hands On Asheville provided all the organization of volunteers for our Second Bloom project today.  It’s great to see who shows up to help out, what drew them to volunteer and how they like the experience.  I always consider it a good indication when volunteers want to return!  Check out some more photos.

HANDS ON ASHEVILLE

Hands on Asheville provided us with 4 wonderful volunteers today.  In the photo on the left is Bonnie, Shanna, Laura and Clare, the Project Manager.  Hands on Asheville is a non-profit organization that organizes volunteers for businesses like Second Bloom.  It was totally great for me to simply arrive and have volunteers magically appear!

We stayed dry on the patio as we worked away at making over 60 small arrangements for all the patients and many of the staff at Care Partners Rehab Hospital.  The front desk received a vase with a huge yellow orchid in it - quite stunning.  Check it out.

We received flowers from The Fresh Market as well as from The Bloom Room.  The Bloom Room had 5 events going on this weekend, so we got some beautiful flowers.  I was concerned we might not have enough, so I cut some gorgeous mountain laurel from my yard.  Put together they created an amazingly colorful effect.  And we had more than enough.  (It wasn’t until much later in the day that I realized the reason I thought we might not have enough flowers is because I’d left a huge buckets full of bright purple delphiniums, parrot tulips, orchids and greens at home…..oops.)

THE BUCKET LIST

Well, it’s a different list than the one from the movie titled ‘The Bucket List’.  My bucket list is trying to figure where I might be taking 12 buckets of flowers.  The first stop on the Flower Exchange Train was Care Partners Rehab Hospital.  There were almost 60 residents and so we stuffed those cups like crazy!  Made arrangements for the nurses stations and many of the staff as well.  I think we went through about 6 buckets of flowers.

It was a beautiful day.  Susan had driven from The Fresh Market in Hendersonville with 5 buckets and I had 7 from two days of collecting from The Fresh Market in Asheville.  It was stellar.  Lots of variety to work with.  And we even enticed a few staff members out from behind their desks to join us on the patio.  Both Laurie and Jim were happy to help out and turned out to be terrific ‘bloomers’, quickly taking to our method of putting as many flowers in a cup as we possibly could.

ROSES ALL AROUND

It was Second Bloom’s second delivery of the day and the second time we’d been at Care Partners Rehab Hospital.  To see our first delivery, click here. It was raining off an on but warm enough to work outside under cover.  Sharon Pearson, the Volunteer Coordinator for the Rehab Hospital came out to help but was a bit camera shy, so I left her off the hook….  However, Damaris volunteered and as you can see, she was not camera shy.

The flowers were from Fresh Market - roses of every color you can imagine.  Mixed with a few greens we made beautiful arrangements for all the patients and even some of the staff.  It’s great to work with people that know how to arrange flowers.  I must say I’m learning quite a lot.

TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS

What a beautiful spring morning!  Clare, a new volunteer with Second Bloom, rode into the Biltmore Estate to help me pick up flowers from a wedding the night before at the Inn at Biltmore.  The flowers were from Blossoms at Biltmore Park and they were gorgeous.  Tulips galore - beautiful spring colors.  They filled up half of the truck bed and we wound are way over to Care Partners Rehabilitation Hospital. This was Second Bloom’s first visit to the Rehab Hospital. It’s a brand new building, beautiful both inside and out.  It feels spacious, welcoming and healing.

We were met with both surprise and delight by the patients and staff.  We had plenty of flowers to go around.  Jackie came by to help us and within a short time we had passed out over 50 small arrangements.  Clare and Jackie are in the photo on the left and Clare’s got the solo photo on the right.  Check out some more photos from our morning!