Local Florist Donates Spare V-Day Flowers To Essential Workers

PATCHOGUE, NY — A local East Patchogue florist spread the love to those who needed it the most this past Valentine's Day.

Nichole Fisher has been working as a florist for over 10 years, eventually starting her local business, Blooming Events Floral Design on Mercury Avenue. While she is a full-service florist, she is home-based and therefore doesn't have the "super-high" traffic of a traditional flower shop.

She mostly does weddings and event work, but typically during the major holidays, such as Valentine's Day, she sees a spike in sales.

Like many other local businesses, Fisher had to pivot a bit with coronavirus restrictions on events and come up with an alternate game plan to survive.

While she knew that Valentine's Day would not be as busy as in previous years, she expected it to be busier than normal, so she ordered a lot of flowers.

"Flower ordering for a florist is always very stressful for major holidays as we have to go based on past and current trends on what to order," she told Patch. "It's always a concern if you ordered too much or not enough as our product is 100 percent perishable with a very short shelf life."

Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened this year. Due to the pandemic, Fisher said she had a "devastatingly slow" weekend, make less than a third of the business she typically does. As a result, she was left with several thousands of dollars in flowers in her cooler. That's when she got the idea to donate them to the frontline heroes and essential workers who needed a little extra love this holiday.

"It would have been heartbreaking to throw all of that away, so I figured why not donate them to make some people smile," she said. "What better way to do that than to bless our front line and essential workers during this crazy time?"

She posted a call out on Facebook to find people to donate the flowers to. As a result, the local business owner made deliveries to 20 homes and donated 26 bouquets worth about $100 to $175 each to nurses, ambulance drivers, police officers, firemen, and other essential workers. In addition, she even donated to one local family that is currently in the midst of recovering from coronavirus.

"I got an overwhelming response and I'm so happy that I was able to make some smile, even if it is just a small gesture," Fisher said. "Sometimes small gestures are all we need to change the course of our day, which is one of the reasons that the gift of flowers is always a great idea."