How the Floral Industry Is Supporting its Peers in Uvalde, Texas
Photo: Society of American Florists
Teia Bennett, owner of Blumen Meister’s Flower Market in New Braunfels, TX, has been part of the floral industry’s swift and powerful response to provide flowers, hard goods, and more for each of the community’s funerals that started last week and will be held through June 15 for the 19 children and two teachers killed in the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. Donations have poured in from the industry including countless stems, ribbons, hard goods, gas cards, and funds. Designers have driven hundreds of miles to lend a hand.
“It’s been a beautiful outpouring of the floral community,” says Dianna Nordman, Executive Director of the Texas State Florists’ Association (TSFA), which has taken a leading role in organizing the logistics for the industry’s response.
Following the tragedy, TSFA President Cheryl Vaughan quickly called two florists in Uvalde — The Flower Patch and Country Gardens & Seed — to offer support.
“We immediately started getting orders from them that needed to be filled,” Vaughan says, explaining that the number of orders far exceeded what could be handled by the two stores.
While some volunteers flocked to Uvalde to help, Vaughan worked with Bennett to set up an outpost at Blumen Meister’s, which is a little more than a two-hour drive from Uvalde.
At Blumen Meister’s, they transformed the 3,000-square-foot store by setting up 10 additional workstations in addition to the five already in place.
“This is a place to get everything done for Uvalde and take some of the pressure off of them to get these funeral arrangements done,” Vaughan says, noting that they are making casket sprays, baskets, arrangements, heart forms, wreaths, and regular easels.
TSFA received donations from 33 growers, wholesalers, hard good companies, and had 19 volunteers come to Blumen Meister’s to help, Nordman says. Additionally, the city of New Braunfels has provided hotel accommodations for volunteers staying more than a day, restaurants have fed the volunteers, a gas station donated fuel cards to offset the cost of delivering the flowers, and others have offered to drive the two to four vans needed daily to deliver the flowers to Uvalde.
“We couldn’t do this by ourselves — they couldn’t do it by themselves,” Vaughn says. “It is the whole flower industry coming together.”
Continue reading this story at SAFnow.org.
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