DAN CEARNS, for The Standard
SCUGOG: After overwhelming success with their recent fundraising initiative, Port Perry’s Branching Out florist is doing another offering this spring to residents and healthcare workers in local long-term care homes.
For Valentine’s Day, the local floral shop ran an initiative called Heart 2 Heart. People could donate at least $2 and have a carnation delivered to a long-term care resident or healthcare worker.
“The response from the community was overwhelming. We weren’t really sure what the response was going to be, to be honest. The initial program was; every healthcare worker and every long-term care resident would receive a carnation. So, as money started to come in, we found we could actually do two carnations for every healthcare worker because, what we heard on social media was; people really wanted to recognize the healthcare workers,” One of the Branching Out owners, Sharon Runnalls, told The Standard. “I literally had people come up, calling in, coming to the door [and] dropping off money, even though it was the cut off day, if not a day after. I wasn’t going to say no because people were being kind and generous. Once we got through Valentine’s Day, I was able to sit down and do a final tally. In doing that tally, there was a considerable amount of money left. [There was] enough money; my business partner and I [looked at] what else we could do. What we decided is, for every healthcare worker and every long-term care resident, we are going to do a potted mini daffodil. That’s going to go out to them right before the first day of spring.”
Branching Out saw a total of 71 donations made to their Heart 2 Heart campaign.
“It was a huge response from the community. I just want to thank everybody for their generosity. We had so many people thank us for doing this. We are very grateful to work in such a caring, giving and thoughtful community,” Ms. Runnalls said. The owners are hopeful the flowers will be delivered by Friday, March 19th.
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