WEAVERVILLE, N.C. — Flowers are usually given for a moment — to celebrate, comfort, remember or simply tell someone they matter. In western North Carolina, volunteers are making sure some of those flowers have another moment to give.
Blooms of Kindness, a volunteer-powered nonprofit based in Weaverville, takes donated flowers and vases and turns them into fresh arrangements for people in nursing homes, hospice care, hospitals, shelters and other community settings.
Recently, that mission included flowers left in tribute at a Dolly Parton mural in West Asheville. Instead of allowing the blooms to fade where they had been placed, volunteers collected them and gave them a second purpose.
The effort ultimately produced 169 bouquets delivered to seven locations across western North Carolina, according to 828newsNOW. Recipients included residents of senior and veterans facilities, patients receiving dialysis and children receiving hospital care.
It was an unusually visible example of work Blooms of Kindness does throughout the year.
Chairperson Linda Heaton told WLOS that volunteers create bouquets from donated flowers and vases and deliver them to people who might need “a little sunshine in their day.” Volunteer Scott Abernethy described both arranging and delivering the flowers as an opportunity to do something for others, while fellow volunteer Steve Schachtscheneider spoke about the feeling of participating in something larger than oneself.
The organization assembles arrangements weekly in Asheville and monthly in Hendersonville. Its flowers come from several sources, including grocery stores, weddings and local farms, and volunteers help collect, arrange and deliver them.
The Heartitude Lens
There is something beautifully simple about giving kindness another destination. A flower can be temporary, but what it communicates doesn’t have to be. These volunteers saw something that had already carried meaning and asked whether it could carry that meaning farther. That’s Heartitude in action: noticing what is already within reach — time, hands, flowers, compassion — and choosing to Go Give It. One gesture becomes another, and something meant to honor a life becomes an unexpected reminder to someone else that their life matters, too.
The mural flowers were incorporated into Blooms of Kindness’ regular supply of donated blooms after volunteer Cathy McDonald arranged to collect them. By the following Monday, volunteers had transformed the flowers into bouquets and sent them back into the community.
Flowers don’t last forever.
But kindness has an interesting way of being passed from one pair of hands to another.
Live with Heartitude. Lead with empathy. Love through action. And when you have something good to give — Go Give It.
Source Story: WLOS — “Blooms of Kindness repurposes flowers into gifts of kindness”