Tag: Larsen Jay
As we kick off delivering hope in 2019, we wanted to reflect on some of the highlights of 2018.
Here’s just a small sampling of the milestones and moments that defined our last year here
at Random Acts of Flowers!
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“A Knoxville-based nonprofit has been bringing smiles to hundreds of thousands of people’s faces for 10 years now, and it all started with one bouquet of flowers. Random Acts of Flowers celebrated its 10th birthday Tuesday.
Fran Scheidt has been constructing the floral creations since the very beginning. ‘It was about a third the size of this,’ she said describing their warehouse.
In 10 years Random Acts of Flowers has expanded to Tampa Bay, Chicago and Indianapolis, and they have handed out 340,000 bouquets made from donated flowers, in hospitals, assisted living facilites and hospice care. About 90,000 of those have been in Knoxville where it all began.
‘I like to be around people, but I like what we’re doing,’ Scheidt said.
It has been 10 years of brightening days with beautiful blossoms.”
A decade ago, Random Acts of Flowers (RAF) made its first official delivery. With a strong vision and a simple mission, co-founders Larsen and Adrian Jay started what has become a nationwide phenomenon. Over the past ten years, Random Acts of Flowers has delivered more than 340,000 bouquets of recycled flowers to individuals in hospitals, assisted living facilities, and hospice, and the organization has repurposed more than 356,000 vases, all thanks to the more than 161,000 hours put in by dedicated volunteers. Currently, the RAF mission serves four communities in the US – Knoxville, Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Indianapolis – and has inspired more than two dozen smaller organizations in communities from coast to coast, as well as in the UK.From Sunday, July 22nd through Tuesday, July 24th, Random Acts of Flowers employees from all four branches and the national headquarters will converge on Knoxville for a company retreat focused on making the next ten years of delivering hope even more successful than the last ten have been.
Knox County mayor Tim Burchett has proclaimed Tuesday July 24th to be Random Acts of Flowers Day.
And, that evening, RAF staff will be joined by board members, donors, volunteers, supporters, and community members for the 10thBirthday Happy Hour party at Clancy’s Tavern in downtown Knoxville.
And, for the past month, supporters have been part of the Random Acts of Flowers 10th Anniversary Challenge, participating in a friendly challenge to collectively raise $10,000 in honor of 10 years of delivering hope. The person who raises the most during this one month challenge will receive one bouquet of flowers a month (sent to the person of their choice) for a whole year – compliments of RAF’s friends at The Flower Pot in Knoxville. Further, a generous donor has agreed to match the donations made through the challenge.
As challenge participant Tiffany Gardner says, “In our busy lives, it’s easy to forget that there are people in communities everywhere who are experiencing health hardships. In hospitals, hospice, and assisted living facilities, people are in need of a reminder that they haven’t been forgotten and that there are people who care about their well-being. RAF does that every day.”
Random Acts of Flowers looks to make more than 110,000 deliveries in 2018 and crest 500,000 deliveries by the end of 2019.
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Our Founder and CEO Larsen Jay recently spoke at TEDx UTK on The Healing Power of Flowers.
He shared his personal experience (which led to the founding of RAF) and testimonials from recipients that truly show the difference that flowers can make in the healing process.
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3 Nonprofit Founders Who Are Inspiring Entrepreneurs
(Entrepreneur.com, 9.29.17)
by Brian Hughes
Who’s your business idol? In entrepreneurship circles, it’s natural to look up to figures like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Richard Branson, three innovators who continually inspire people to dream bigger.
While there’s no denying these three leaders are certainly role models, others may receive less media attention but are inspiring nonetheless. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that some of the most inspiring aren’t in the corporate world at all: They’re leading successful nonprofits.
They’re just like us.
Nonprofit leaders have a natural entrepreneurial mindset. They have to, because like startup founders, nonprofit leaders aim to solve a problem by providing goods or services.
In the process, they use creative problem-solving and marketing to raise public awareness and financial support for their vision, just the way entrepreneurs strive to secure financing and build public excitement for their product launches. Many nonprofit leaders also supervise a passionate, paid staff while recruiting and training a robust volunteer force. Moreover, these leaders must be creative, open-minded, flexible and nimble — just like, you guessed it, entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship lesson: Opportunity is everywhere — you just need to think outside the box. In founding Random Acts of Flowers, Jay turned “lemons into lemonade” by finding a creative way to repurpose floral arrangements, bringing joy and vital emotional support to patients when they need it most.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
Farragut Residents Add Cheer with Flowers
(Farragut Press, 9.20.2017)
The core idea of Random Acts of Flowers is to re-purpose flowers; for instance, flowers that have just been used at a wedding could be distributed the next day to patients at a hospital or to residents in a nursing home.
This non-profit was founded by Larsen Jay of Knoxville in 2008. He was taken aback by seeing hospital patients without flowers, in contrast to the many that came to his room in the days after recovering from a fall. Jay was inspired to change that imbalance.
Also inspired are Farragut residents Nancy Kirt and Carla Werner, who have been Random Acts of Flowers volunteers for a few years. Both women said they get a lot of joy out of helping with the nonprofit.
When Kirt moved to Linda Heights from Wisconsin three years ago, she came with her Master Gardener credentials. “I always thought delivering flowers would be fun,” she said. “I work in my yard a lot because I enjoy it.” She saw an announcement for volunteers and attended a short orientation at the headquarters off Middlebrook Pike with about 20 others.
“There are a lot of people in Knoxville who volunteer,” she said. “There’s floral prep, there’s designing bouquets, there’s delivery, there are people who wash vases and buckets [so the flowers last longer] and there’s sweeping up,” she said. “People bring flowers to the warehouse after events, such as weddings, and get them from the grocery stores. John Benzinger donates flowers he grows. Sometimes companies donate staff time to do floral prep and sometimes students come in to get in volunteer hours.
“It’s a good environment,” she added about the warehouse. “Depending on the day, there’s usually about 20 to 30 volunteers. The warehouse isn’t air-conditioned, so there’s one very large fan. There’s music playing, there’s a lot of people you can talk to and people are making friendships at the same time. It’s busy. It’s uplifting to be there. I go about once a week for about three hours. You can come and go as you please.”
Werner retired as assistant principal at John Sevier Elementary School seven years ago.
“I knew I wanted to find some things to do on my interest level and I’d always loved flowers,” she said. “I saw an ad in a local magazine. Random Acts of Flowers was just beginning and they had classes where you could go learn design work. I went for three classes and the lady who was the manager of Random Acts who checked people in and assisted said, ‘Why don’t you do some design work at Random Acts of Flowers facility?’ It was a very small organization at the time, just beginning, and everybody did flowers, cleaned vases, whatever needed to be done.
“The flowers that were donated were always taken out of that arrangement and put in containers with water,” she explained. “We always made another original.”
After working in flower design for three or four years, she changed assignments.
“A couple of years ago, they needed someone to drive the delivery van to Maryville. Since I’d taught there, it was natural for me to go to Blount Memorial. Since then they’ve hired a driver, John Cavagrotti.”
Eventually, Werner became a delivery person at Blount Memorial Hospital.
“When the flower arrangements are made, we meet John at the hospital and he has the flowers in the van,” she said. “Blount Memorial has made us part of their volunteer staff.” Werner and two other ladies, Evelyn Weisekoff and Lori Chmielreski, have delivered flowers to patients’ rooms for about three years now.
“I think the part I like the best is when you walk into a room and the patient has received nothing. They have no flowers and they seem to be very sad. When you bring them flowers, it’s an immediate positive reaction most of the time,” Werner added. “You know you’ve done something nice for them today.”
September 21, 2017 by Carolyn Evans
Read Full Article HERE
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.
Thank You BBQ Honors Knoxville’s First Responders
Knoxville News Sentinal – First responders with the Knoxville Fire Department, Knoxville Police Department, American Medical Response, and other were honored by Random Acts of Flowers founder Larsen Jay on Saturday, ten years to the day that Jay was seriously injured in a life changing accident.
Over 100 first responders from the Knoxville area were treated with a free barbeque lunch by Jay and a group of volunteers. According to Captain D. J. Corcoran of the Knoxville Fire Department, this year’s celebration was part of an annual tradition of Jay’s.
“Every year for the last six or seven years, he’s come back and done something for the firefighters and emergency workers. This year is the ten-year anniversary, so it’s kind of milestone.”
KnoxTNToday.com – Larsen Jay bought lunch for the area’s first responders Saturday on the 10th anniversary of his near-fatal accident.
“After 12 surgeries and years of therapy, I live a healthy and productive life with a wonderful family,” Jay said. “I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than to honor the hard-working people in our safety and health professions.”