Most children embrace summer vacation as a time to be lazy. Not Claire and Bridget Geary.
On Friday, June 26, the girls went to work with their mom, Jen, owner of Sterling Rose Design in Avon Lake, Ohio, to shock and awe some locals with the joy of flowers.
Across the country, hundreds of florists joined the Gearys in Lonely Bouquet Day, a goodwill campaign organized by Mayesh Wholesale Florist. The concept is simple: create gorgeous bouquets for strangers to brighten their day with a floral surprise.
The bouquets, typically left around town —on a park bench or in a hospital waiting room, for instance — have tags attached explaining why they exist (to make people happy). The tags also include a hashtag, #Mayeshlonelybouquet, encouraging the lucky recipients to share their experience on social media, so their friends will see the power of flowers and Mayesh can track the project’s reach.
Florists showed up at all 16 of Mayesh’s warehouse locations to design bouquets with donated product from Sun Valley Farms, Paseo Farms, Joseph & Sons, Florawest, Ocean Breeze International, and Skyline Flowers.
Jen Geary invited her girls to participate so they could get a behind-the-scenes view of the floral business and do a good deed at the same time. The girls picked flowers in their favorite colors (Claire is a blue girl and Bridget loves orange) to make their bouquets.
After leaving the Cleveland Mayesh facility, the family drove around, discussing where to leave the bouquets. In the meantime, they decided to grab a bite to eat. At the drive through window, the cashier spotted Claire in the passenger seat holding her bouquet and remarked, “What lovely flowers!” When the cashier turned back to retrieve the food, Claire said, “let’s give them to her!” The family agreed: “Yes, let’s make her day.” She was delighted to receive the flowers and called her manager over to see. “There were smiles all around!” Jen Geary said. “It was a great immediate response.”
For Bridget’s bouquet, they went to St. John Hospital. “She loved the idea of ‘launching it up an elevator’ hoping a sick person would find it,” Jen Geary said. “The girls had such a great time trying to be sneaky as they placed the bouquet in the elevator.”
The third bouquet they left in the Avon Lake Public Library.
Two days later, they saw a post on Facebook about the bouquet in the elevator:
“The flowers delivered to St. John’s were delivered to mom’s hospital room. She had just received a diagnosis of cancer and had to have surgery. You brought a smile to her face that day! Thank you so much!!”
“Bridget was so happy to have her bouquet make someone’s day,” Jen Geary said. “I got so much out of this beautiful, fun day with my daughters doing good deeds!”
Florists distributed more than 400 Mayesh lonely bouquets. Click here for more heart-warming stories.