Article Charity Uses Recycled Floral Arrangements To Brighten People's Lives

Katie Hendrick

Contributing Author
Jan 19, 2014
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Do you remember the first time you received flowers?

Larsen Jay does – July 29, 2007.

He was in the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, recovering from a near-fatal fall off a ladder.

“It was the hardest week of my life,” he said. “Then the bouquets arrived – 30 or 40 of them. It was an amazing visual reinforcement of the support I had, which gave me the mental strength I needed.”

A few days later, he went “a little stir crazy,” and started roaming the hospital halls in his wheelchair. “I saw all these barren, lifeless rooms, while I was recovering in jungle of joy,” he said. So, with the help of friends and family, he loaded up a wheelchair with his flowers and began making deliveries.

His first arrangement went to a woman in a full body cast. “You could see her face and she had this look of pure desperation that seemed to beg, ‘please pull the plug for me.’ Then she saw her flowers,” Jay said. “They fundamentally shifted her mental state in a second.”

The experience gave him two epiphanies. First, flowers have a purpose. “They really do express feelings, whether that’s love, celebration, sympathy, encouragement … they make a difference.” Secondly, he figured there had to be tons of flowers thrown away all the time (with weddings and funerals alone) that could be going to people in need of cheer.

Thus, the idea for Random Acts of Flowers was born. With complete support from his wife, colleagues and friends, Jay abandoned his 15-year career in the film industry to oversee the charity, which recycles floral arrangements for people in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice organizations.

“I didn’t know anything about the floral industry, but I knew flowers made a difference for people and I believed it could work,” he said.

It did.

Jay has found an abundance of people eager to share their flowers and florists willing to contribute their talents. Each donated arrangement is deconstructed (removing any flowers that are past their prime and renourishing the rest) and repurposed to fit nicely on a bedside table.

A card explaining the charity accompanies each piece, as does a handwritten note listing the original recipient and the florist who helped. “Even if they don’t know who these people are, we want them to know there are people in the community who care about them,” he said.

When Random Acts of Flowers started six years, it made about 150 deliveries a month in Knoxville, Tenn. Now, the organization is in two more communities – Greeneville, Tenn., and Pinellas County, Fla. – and averages 2,000 deliveries a month. Cumulatively, Random Acts of Flowers has made 35,390 deliveries.

Jay credits the organization’s success with touch points the masses can rally behind. “Everybody’s been to a wedding or a funeral and wondered what’s going to happen to all those flowers. Everybody’s known someone who’s been in the hospital and needed a pick me up. And everybody understands the value of recycling,” he said.

Right now, Random Acts of Flowers is in expansion mode, with plans for future branches in Salt Lake City, Indianapolis and Miami, Fla.

To learn more, visit randomactsofflowers.org.