13 Jan “Healing With Flowers” Ministry in Greene County looking for Volunteers
Healing With Flowers is back up and spreading joy after shutting down operations due to the pandemic, but the ministry is in more need of volunteers than ever.
Now in its sixth year, the all-volunteer organization’s mission is to repurpose donated flowers into bouquets that are then delivered to nursing homes and hospitals.
Healing With Flowers has delivered 32,134 arrangements and recycled 33,857 vases in total – earlier this week, volunteers worked with flowers to create 31 arrangements for residents at Brookdale Senior Living.
They closed in March 2020 due to the pandemic and didn’t start back until June 2021. Donations are also down compared to before the pandemic, and now that nursing homes have resumed accepting flowers, they hope to get back to pre-pandemic flower distributions. That used to include deliveries as far as Limestone and Jonesborough but no longer does, primarily due to a lack of available volunteers to deliver.
Healing With Flowers is now seeking volunteers both to deliver arrangements and join efforts to create them.
The ministry is also seeking donations of flowers, which often come from local churches, grocery stores and florists, and events such as weddings or funerals. The ministry also uses and accepts donations of vases, as well as plastic and tin containers to be used as non-breakable vases, and financial donations assist the group with purchasing other needed materials.
For now, delivering simply entails dropping the bouquets off at their destination, as nursing homes and hospitals continue pandemic safety measures, but volunteers said they hope to also return to the pre-pandemic custom of delivering the flowers themselves and seeing the smiles they bring.
The mailing address for the ministry is 550 Zion Hollow Road, Afton, TN 37616, and the organization is on Facebook.
For more information or to get involved, call 423-708-4325.