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Cancelled Wedding Flowers Repurposed for Milestone (WTSP Tampa Bay, 9.20.17)

Cancelled Wedding Flowers Repurposed for Milestone

(WTSP Tampa Bay, 9.20.17)

Saturday, Sept. 9, was supposed to be the perfect day. Justin Murphy and Katherine McKoy planned a sandy-toes wedding on Clearwater Beach for months. Only, the ceremony never happened.

Hurricane Irma crossed over land as an enormous Category 4 storm. It made its way up the east coast of Florida the same weekend that Justin and Katherine were set to tie the knot. Nearly 150 guests were supposed to be in town to witness the ceremony. Justin alerted everyone on Wednesday, Sept. 6, that the wedding would have to be put off due to the nasty weather. Safety was the top priority.

The next morning, the couple went down to the Pinellas County Courthouse in suit and gown. Their marriage was made official, albeit without the beautiful sunset they’d hoped for. Then they remembered the flowers. Nearly $2,000 worth of beautifully arranged bouquets would go to waste because of Hurricane Irma’s timing. The Murphys were determined to find a good home for them.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO STORY HERE

They settled on donating to Dunedin nonprofit, Random Acts of Flowers. The organization takes gently used flowers and distributes them around the community to places like nursing homes and hospitals in hopes that a few pretty petals may bring a smile to someone who needs them. In all, Justin and Katherine’s flowers were able to generate 170 bouquets for Random Acts of Flowers to hand out.

“We are so glad to see a tough and sad situation turned into a positive one,” Justin wrote in a blog post for the nonprofit.

The donation helped RAF hit a long-awaited milestone. The group was able to finally hit a the 50,000-donated bouquet mark they’d been striving towards for years.

The flowers were donated the next week. On September 18, RAF donated its 50,000th bouquet to residents at Florida Hospital North Pinellas who needed to be evacuated because of Hurricane Irma.

“I couldn’t imagine coming to the 50,000 mark in four short years,” said RAF’s Monica Kok.

“My grandmother is in the hospital and she wanted to thank all of you for the flowers that were given to her out of the kindness of your hearts!” said Julie, a family member of a woman who received flowers. “It really made her happy! All I wanted to see was a smile on her face and she smiled like a ray of sunshine!”

The glorious wedding that Justin and Katherine planned didn’t quite work out according to plan, but the kind gesture to donate their unused flowers brought some joy to a few strangers that may have needed it most. “It was bittersweet,” said Katherine. “I knew it was going to people who would greatly appreciate them but it was still hard to watch them go.

WATCH THE FULL VIDEO STORY HERE

© 2017 WTSP-TV

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Newsroom

Random Acts of Flowers Tampa Bay Celebrates 50,000th Delivery

Random Acts of Flowers Tampa Bay
Celebrates 50,000th Delivery

Random Acts of Flowers celebrated a big milestone this fall! On September 19th, 2017, the Tampa Bay branch of RAF in Dunedin, FL delivered its 50,000th bouquet to a recipient at Florida Hospital of North Pinellas. Longtime volunteer Rick Lawrence was very excited to be a part of this special delivery. “I remember RAF’s first delivery at Mease Manor. Immediately, it was such a blessing. Every recipient is genuinely surprised and excited when we come into their room with a beautiful arrangements. I absolutely love it, and I am so happy to be a part of the 50,000th delivery milestone.”

Random Acts of Flowers began when founder Larsen Jay used a personal experience to inspire a simple yet generous mission. After a near-fatal accident, Jay was amazed by the amount of support and encouragement he received as his hospital room filled with beautiful flowers. He soon realized that several of his fellow patients did not receive visitors or flowers, and it became his personal mission to share the floral encouragement he had received. The bouquets he shared with other patients that fateful day serve as the inspiration behind RAF’s mission to improve the emotional health and well-being of individuals in health care facilities by delivering recycled flowers, encouragement, and personal moments of kindness.

“For more than 3 years, the dedicated team at RAF Tampa Bay have focused on the simplicity of kindness, compassion and the delivery of hope. We find great comfort in knowing that the emotional impact of every recycled bouquet delivered in a healthcare facility has a ripple effect far beyond the recipient. This significant milestone serves as an ongoing testament to the volunteer spirit and the generosity behind all who support the Random Acts of Flowers’ mission,” Jay said.

Since launching in November of 2013, the organization has provided personal moments of hope and kindness to individuals throughout the community.

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Chicago Patron Society Knoxville Patron Society Newsroom

This month, our Branches Nationwide surpassed our 2016 totals!

We are only two-thirds of the way through 2017, but RAF branches nationwide have surpassed our TOTAL deliveries for 2016! We estimate that we will make nearly 100,000 deliveries in 2017!

That’s an incredible amount of delivering hope!

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Blog

“We send you these flowers from our hearts” – A Hurricane Irma Wedding Story

“We send you these flowers from our hearts”
A Hurricane Irma Wedding Story

Justin Murphy and his new bride, Katherine, had planned a glorious celebration of their love and life together, but Hurricane Irma had other plans for their oceanside wedding day. Read about how the couple’s resilience, love, and generosity touched hundreds of lives in the face of the storm –

Katherine and I started planning for our picture-perfect dream wedding well over a year ago – a sunset celebration on Clearwater Beach, FL on Saturday, September 9th. Just a week prior to our chosen date, we went into the Pinellas County Courthouse and obtained our marriage license. And, well into the week before Hurricane Irma hit, we were still hopeful that mother nature and the storm were going to make a turn in another direction. As the days passed, however, our concerns for the safety of our more than 150 guests from both near and far as well as local venue employees increased. The dangers became real and we started to consider our options to evacuate the Tampa area. On Wednesday, September 6th, our wedding event was officially cancelled. As challenging as that was, we kept our hopes up and our love remained stronger than ever.

Evacuation notifications began to spread, and we learned local government offices would be closed ahead of the storm, too. Thursday morning the 7th came and with heavy, yet strong hearts, we were determined to see our lifelong commitment to each other through. Katherine put on her beautiful wedding dress, did her hair and makeup while I found a suit stashed away in the closet. We met in the living room of our home and shared a few tears as we experienced our true “first look.” Meanwhile, my mother ran out and found a bouquet for Katherine to carry. It was emotional for us all, and yet, so beautiful. With my mother and our son as our witnesses, we were married on the afternoon of Thursday, September 7th. While it was not quite under the beautiful sunset of Clearwater Beach, it was a true testament of the strong love we share today and alwaysl.

Amid our own plans to evacuate the area, we thought about all the beautiful flowers that were prepared for our wedding day. We were not willing to let those flowers – a symbol of what was to be – go to waste. We asked our wedding planner, Barb Oehlerking from Artistry Designs to see how we could donate so many beautiful flowers. We were fortunate enough to find such a great organization and team in Random Acts of Flowers in Tampa. Through the efforts of Monica, Janette, and Barb, we coordinated and donated every flower we had planned to use on our wedding day.

We learned more than 170 bouquets were made and so many lives were touched. We are so glad to see a tough and sad situation turned into a positive one.

    

“My grandmother is in the hospital and she wanted to thank all of you for the flowers that were given to her out of the kindness of your hearts! It really made her happy! All I wanted to see was a smile on her face and she smiled like a ray of sunshine!” – Julie H., Family of Recipient

Our message to all recipients would be that we send you these flowers from our hearts. We hope they brought a ray of sunshine and hope into your lives. Knowing Random Acts of Flowers was able to step in and repurpose the flowers and bless others brings us both happiness and joy. We sent them to you in love and as a symbol of the love both Katherine and I share together today. We will welcome our son to this world in December, another joy we share together and look forward to. The picture-perfect dream wedding we set out for will occur sometime in 2018.

For now, we focus on getting our lives back together, sharing the moments and memories that surfaced during such a challenging time, and celebrating our special love that will endure for all time.

Sincerely, Justin Murphy

After All, To Love and Be Loved Is Life.

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Blog

Meet Random Acts of Flowers Queen of Green, Sarah Cronan

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Meet RAF’s Queen of Green, Sarah Cronan

Headshot by Crystal Martin

This week, Random Acts of Flowers’ National Director of Finance and Administration Sarah Cronan, is more than 1,000 miles away from our National Headquarters, attending the 2017 Perennial Plant Association Symposium in Denver, Colorado. Because – while Sarah is the Queen of fiscal Green for our organization – her other passion is gardening, which makes her and RAF a perfect match!

Sarah’s interest in gardening stems from her childhood visiting her grandparents who lived on farms, growing their own vegetables and flowers. She loved to visit them, picking flowers and enjoying the fresh veggies. This interest became a passion as she got older, and is now a defining part of her life. Having spent her pre-RAF career in a series of intense – and sometimes stressful jobs – Sarah finds her garden a therapeutic and comforting place.

“Whenever I travel, wherever I go, I love to seek out people with an interest in plants and check out nurseries. I’m always on the lookout for unusual things that I can’t get in my local garden center.
I love plants!”

Sarah returned to the working world at the beginning of 2017 after having spent several years with her garden as her full-time job. When RAF COO/CMO Cindy McConkey Cox (with whom Sarah worked at Scripps Networks Interactive) reached out to her about joining the RAF team, Sarah was “ready to get back to business. And, I wanted something tied to the horticulture industry in some way, so Random Acts of Flowers was absolutely perfect.”

“I love flowers. I love growing flowers, but I also love cutting flowers. I cut flowers from my own yard to enjoy in my house. And, the mission of RAF is incredible, and – as someone who is so involved with plants – I fully understand the positive impact that being around flowers and plants can have on someone’s life.”

From managing the fiscal green at the RAF office to cultivating the floral green at her home garden, Sarah wears her Queen of Green crown beautifully![/fusion_text][imageframe lightbox=”no” gallery_id=”” lightbox_image=”” style_type=”none” hover_type=”none” bordercolor=”” bordersize=”0px” borderradius=”0″ stylecolor=”” align=”center” link=”” linktarget=”_self” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” hide_on_mobile=”no” class=”” id=””] [/imageframe][separator style_type=”none” top_margin=”40″ bottom_margin=”” sep_color=”” border_size=”” icon=”” icon_circle=”” icon_circle_color=”” width=”” alignment=”center” class=”” id=””][one_sixth last=”no” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][/one_sixth][two_third last=”no” spacing=”yes” center_content=”no” hide_on_mobile=”no” background_color=”” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_position=”left top” hover_type=”none” link=”” border_position=”all” border_size=”0px” border_color=”” border_style=”” padding=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”” animation_speed=”0.1″ animation_offset=”” class=”” id=””][fusion_text]

After Sarah’s garden appeared in an article in the Knoxville News-Sentinel, a local garden club reached out to see if the club could pay a visit. So earlier this year, the club visited Sarah’s home to see the wide variety of plants she cultivates on about two acres of land in West Knoxville.

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Guest Blog: The Magic Healing Power of Flowers by Katie Hess of LotusWei

Guest Blog: The Magic Healing Power of Flowers

by Katie Hess of LotusWei

Flowers bring joy to our faces and light up our lives. Being around them simply makes us feel better, and scientific studies have shown that flowers in a hospital room can even help us heal faster by promoting lower stress and perceived pain levels.

unnamedBut the magic of flowers goes even deeper than this feel-good reaction we have to their presence. Imagine walking in a field of your favorite flower. Or burying your face in its petals. That which you are feeling – whether in reality or through visualization – is indicative of the benefits and special qualities of that particular flower.

Every flower on the planet has its own unique quality. When we think of a Peony flower, it makes us feel very different than when we think of a Rose or a Daisy or Orchid. Some flowers bring us joy, others invoke love, peace or even help us sleep more deeply. Each flower contains a particular healing quality, feeling or state of mind within us. Even if we have not been aware of or articulated this knowledge before, we intuitively know this about flowers.

Flowers Act as Messengers

Excerpted from Flowerevolution: Blooming into Your Full Potential with the Magic of Flowers.

Flowers connect us with our loved ones. Giving flowers to is a profound expression of a particular essence or feeling that cannot always be expressed in words. When we buy flowers for other people, we consider them as we choose the flowers. We access that “feeling” part of us to see what kind of flowers suit them or embody the particular feeling that we want to convey.

Each flower embodies a unique quality. Irises, for example, evoke an elegant and wild creativity, with their royal purple, paintbrush-like tips that ruffle out into full bloom and the bold streak of yellow in the center. Gerbera daisies, on the other hand, are all joy; they’re expansive, radiating liveliness and vitality with their radial shape like the sun. Orchids are an entirely different story, otherworldly in their exquisite sophistication and beauty.

Imagine for a moment giving an orchid to someone. Now visualize giving the same person a bouquet of peonies. Next, see yourself giving them a bouquet of sunflowers. How does it feel? Each gift of flowers feels totally different, right? And they will likely provoke different responses from the recipient.

Even when you buy cut flowers or a potted plant for yourself, your choice expresses or brings out a certain quality in you. Some flowers you feel particularly drawn to, and others you simply don’t. More often than not, the flowers you are drawn to are not the same as the flowers the next person is attracted to. Based on our internal landscapes, we gravitate to specific flowers for the way they make us feel.

These preferences are not based on traditional symbolism; they come from understanding the flowers through our hearts. We already speak the language of flowers, without knowing it. The flowers that we are most attracted to are those that have qualities we want to embody or that dissolve, shift, or awaken something inside us.

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What’s more, these qualities can be captured, collected and infused into water, Mother Nature’s greatest recording device, into what are known as flower elixirs. Different from aromatherapy, flower elixirs don’t have a scent and work through the body’s acupuncture meridians. It is a liquid infusion of a flower or plant’s ‘chi’ or life-force, whereas an essential oil is distilled or extracted from the plant into a highly aromatic oil.

I’ve spent the last 15 years working with flower elixirs and observing their transformative effects on people. At a time when we are more distracted, fatigued and stressed than ever, flower elixirs not only help us be our best selves, but they also show us our full potential. By spending time around them – putting them in our environment, using their essential oils (aromatherapeutic) or flower elixirs (taken internally) – it is possible to experience the specific healing qualities of different flowers.

Flowers have been a well-loved way to brighten up our home or someone’s day, but they are also the best remedy you’ve likely never even heard of.

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Katie Hess is a flower alchemist and the founder of LOTUSWEI, one of the world’s leading floral apothecaries. After 15 years of independent research of flower and plant-based healing, her flower-powered community is thriving in over 15 countries. Her transformative elixirs having been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, The LA Times, Sunset, and Organic Spa Magazine. A lifelong spiritual seeker, Katie has studied meditation and mindful-awareness techniques with several Tibetan Buddhist masters, including the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa, Tibet’s next generation leader. Choose the flowers you’re most attracted to and find out what it means about you at: www.lotuswei.com.

If you’d like to discover more about flower elixirs, their magical abilities, and the activating qualities of individual flowers, I just came out with a book: Flowerevolution: Blooming Into Your Full Potential with the Magic of Flowers.