Recycled bouquets light up faces

Random Acts of Flowers delivers to patients, elderly

CHICAGO -- Cathy Palivos sorts through a massive box of scarlet roses with deft fingers.

"See here," she says, pressing the pad of her thumb against the rose. "Always check to see if it has a hard center. It means it will last another five days."

Palivos, a volunteer from north suburban Evanston, is wearing a purple apron, the strings wrapped twice around the waist and tied in a bow. Her movements are even: One rose goes in a bubble gum pink vase, another in a black recycling bin. Some of the flowers are nearing the end of their life.

Back in January, a bride clutched the roses at her chilly wedding. Soon they'll be repurposed and delivered to a resident at a local elder care facility.

Random Acts of Flowers, a nonprofit new to Chicago, solicits flower donations from wedding venues, funeral homes, florists and grocery stores. Recently the organization received bunches of blue flowers from a memorial for former Cubs baseball player Ernie Banks.

The flowers are recycled by volunteers such as Palivos and delivered to residents at hospitals, nursing homes and hospice centers. The patients often have never received flowers. The Chicago branch, which opened recently, currently serves 14 facilities, including Covenant Home of Chicago, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Waterford Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Centre and Sunrise of Wilmette.

"It's so simple and so tangible," said Natalie Berg, executive director of Random Acts of Flowers-Chicago. "You walk into a room of someone who is often down and depressed. They aren't smiling when you walk in, but they sure are when you walk out."

The Chicago branch is overseen by Brooke Mac­Lean, a former engineer turned mother turned flower aficionado. MacLean's brother-in-law, Larsen Jay, started Random Acts of Flowers six years ago.

In July 2007, Jay tumbled off a ladder while working on his garage and fell nearly two stories, slamming into the concrete below. The fall fractured his skull in 10 places and broke his nose, right femur, right elbow, left arm and both wrists. He was hospitalized for 22 days near his home in Knoxville, Tenn.

"He is the bionic man," MacLean said. "They literally pieced him back together. He should have died."

Jay received about 50 bouquets during his stay in the trauma unit. Later, fending off cabin fever, he took a spin around the hospital floor in a wheelchair, noting that many of the rooms were stark and bleak. Few patients had flowers.

Jay returned to his room, ripped the cards off the flower bouquets and delivered flowers to his neighbors. An idea was born.

Six years later, Knoxville-based Random Acts of Flowers has delivered nearly 60,000 bouquets. The organization also has locations in Greeneville, Tenn., and Pinellas County, Fla. A location in Silicon Valley in California recently opened.

"We have watched it grow from this little seed of an idea," MacLean said. "It was a very gradual process. It's therapeutic to give a smile and receive a smile. It's really just a simple, good thing to do. It's amazing we were able to start in Chicago."

On a recent overcast Thursday, Palivos and six other volunteers hustled to create 75 bouquets for residents at Chalet Living and Rehab in Chicago.

The volunteers work out of a small studio behind Nature's Perspective Landscaping in Evanston, Ill. Bins of bright yellow daisies and fuchsia tulips, pale orange lilies and tendrils of green ferns line the walls. The air is saturated with the scent of flowers.

Nearly 80 volunteers rotate each week to help create the bouquets. They were given a flower arrangement lesson at an earlier orientation meeting. A few, like Linda Laatsch, already had some personal experience creating bouquets.

Laatsch stretches a pair of thin rubber garden gloves over her hands and picks an array of red and white roses out of one of the boxes. She clips the stems off at acute angles. It keeps the flowers from drying out, she explains.

Laatsch said she had worked in hospitals for 22 years, formerly as a clinical psychologist at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. She has seen the effect of stark hospital rooms.

"I know a lot of patients would love to have this pop of color in their room," Laatsch said. "They get so depressed in bleak environments. So many people don't have loved ones to visit them."

Laatsch finishes the bouquet in about 20 minutes. It's a birthday bouquet -- candles march around the vase, bright and flaming. It's the last arrangement completed for the afternoon. The volunteers have exceeded their goal: Seventy-six bouquets are packed into shopping carts, waiting to be transferred into a nearby van.

They are loaded into the vehicle and driven three miles to the rehab center. Once there, MacLean wheels a cart of flowers up a ramp and into the lobby, greeting Annette Wunschel, acting director of the center.

Wunschel covers her face with her hands, peering down at the colorful delivery. It's the first time the center has received a flower donation.

"Wow, we are just really overwhelmed," she says. "We are so overwhelmed. Wow. They're in vases, too? We weren't expecting that. They're just beautiful."

Wunschel leads MacLean down a hallway and to Minnie Neal's door.

"Hi, there," MacLean says, smiling. She's carrying a vase of pink peonies. "We're just here to give you a little piece of sunshine and outside."

Tears spill over Neal's cheeks, and she reaches for a box of tissues.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she says, her voice cracking. "These are the only flowers I've ever got."

Next: Neal's neighbor, Patricia Sims.

Sims is lying in bed, a pile of word search puzzles and glossy magazines at her side. MacLean tentatively knocks on the door, then enters and hands her a vase of bright yellow daisies.

Sims' face cracks into a wide smile. She hugs the vase to her chest, laughing. Sims moved to the center four years ago after breaking her leg and rarely has visitors.

"Oh, my God, oh, my God!" she says, letting out another burst of laughter. "Oh, this is beautiful. I've never seen flowers so pretty."

Nurses and patients wander past the doorway, stopping to take in the scene and inevitably smiling. Mordy Polstein, one of the center's administrators, shakes his head, grinning.

"I keep seeing a lot of smiles and some bewilderment," Polstein says. "Like, 'Why me?' Almost like they're asking if they're in trouble. It's special because it's not their birthday, and it's not Valentine's Day. It's just completely random.

"For them, getting flowers might be the brightest part of their week. It just infuses the place with life and happiness. It's a morale booster for everyone involved."

It takes about 40 minutes for the volunteers to pass out the bouquets and load the empty carts back in the van. It's just the start -- they're hoping to pass out 200 bouquets a week soon, MacLean said.

"It's simple," she said. "Recycle-deliver-smile. It's compelling. Every time I walk through the door of a center or a hospital, I start to smile. It's just a good thing to do. We need a little more beauty in the world."

High Profile on 02/22/2015

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