Flowers for hospice: Volunteers transform event leftovers into weekly deliveries

At Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, volunteers gather weekly to cut, clean and arrange donated flowers into vases, then deliver them to patients and residents who could use a brighter room. The group, known as the Flower Buds, works with blooms sourced from weddings, funerals, wholesalers, supermarkets, florists, galas, banquets and other community events. Volunteers send out about 100 vases each week to nursing homes, assisted living facilities, shelters and the local VA hospital.

The flowers are often surplus that retailers cannot sell. Jodie Raible, a Flower Buds volunteer, said Kroger allows the group to pick up overstocked flowers. "They allow us to pick them up and then bring them here, and then we cut them, clean them and vase them," Raible said. The vases then go to nursing homes, the VA hospital and assisted living facilities. Stephanie Mullins, another volunteer, delivers arrangements to Up for Women and Children, a day shelter for women experiencing homelessness.

Clem Russell, a veteran volunteer, handles deliveries to the hospice unit at the VA hospital. "We deliver to the hospice unit there at the VA and they love seeing them come in. The families are so happy to see the flowers," Russell said. Raible said the arrangements matter most at the end of life: "When you are in the end stages of your life you want to be cheered up."

The group began with six to eight volunteers and now has 40 members. Mullins has participated for 18 years, since retiring. "I love flowers and this is what I wanted to do when I retired," she said. Since 2006, the Flower Buds have delivered more than 90,000 vases of flowers. Mullins said the blooms would otherwise be discarded: "All these flowers would be thrown in the garbage, so we put them to good use."}

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