Volunteers unpack donated flowers and rearrange them into individual bouquets to be delivered to residents at assisted living and senior living communities.

By RITA KUEBER
“The logistics are the hardest part – taking a highly perishable product, turning it around, and moving it out all smoothly and efficiently. It takes a lot of work but it’s definitely worth it,” says Sue Buddenbaum, the founder of the nonprofit BigHearted Blooms (BHB).
Six years ago, Buddenbaum read an article about a grass-roots organization that gathered up flower arrangements post-wedding/special event/corporate dinner, and recycled them into small, individual bouquets distributed to seniors in nursing homes and patients in other medical facilities. As a cancer survivor and a caretaker for her mother who had dementia, Sue knew firsthand how important it is to receive encouragement and cheer from family and friends. Still, she was aware of how many there are who don’t have the same kind of support.
BigHearted Blooms was born. Her initial move was to contact the organization in the article to gauge their interest in a Cleveland-based branch. While they had to decline for internal reasons, they offered to mentor Sue so she could start her own nonprofit. Last September BigHearted Blooms (BHB) celebrated its fifth anniversary with a cocktail party at the Benjamin Rose Institute. This year they are on track to deliver their 50,000th bouquet.
As charming and straightforward as that sounds, the path has been anything but calm and smooth. Startups are not easy. Startups without a pot of gold are even less easy, and then there was a pandemic right in the middle.
From the beginning, Sue had to find a place to not only store the flowers but also offer space large enough for volunteers to deconstruct large arrangements and reinvent them as smaller, individual bouquets. “The biggest source of flowers was weddings,” Sue says. She explains how she and a core group of volunteers obtained flowers from venues, wholesalers, florists, and even funerals. She also needed vases and people to pick up, work on, and deliver the finished product. BHB found a willing landlord in Cleveland’s Central neighborhoodand eventually Sue was able to purchase a cooler to preserve their fragile inventory.
During the pandemic, however, BHB lost not only the source for their flowers, but also access to nursing homes. Pivoting, the organization successfully partnered with other resources – local grocery stores, for example, and continued its mission by delivering bouquets to those working on the front lines. “We gave vases to nurses and doctors, to hospital custodians, postal workers, and pharmacists – anyone who was crossing the frontlines during the quarantine,” she explains. “We think we delivered about 2,500 vases during that period.”
Senior care buildings opened up again, yet even with today’s model for adults to engage with their community, not everyone can or will take advantage. “Privately built and owned communities have a population that takes part in group activities,” Sue says. “But there’s another part of the population not engaging and not receiving visitors. They have regular caregivers, but not a lot of outside contact, in my experience. And many care communities are underserved and under-resourced, so we try to focus on those.” For this reason, she explains, about 70 percent of the deliveries are in central Cuyahoga County, with some deliveries made to suburbs both east and west.
In addition to the demands of this continuous pipeline, Sue remains a complete volunteer, working a regular full-time job alongside her efforts with BHB. Recently the organization obtained more space in their building as well as a larger, walk-in cooler. In addition to about 400 dedicated volunteers, BHB has three people on payroll totaling the equivalent hours of one three-quarter-time employee. The budget is about 75 percent personal donations and 25 percent grants, garden clubs, and family foundations. “We have a lot of momentum; we’ve come a long way in six years with zero staff, but we’re ready to increase our impact and better serve our community,” she says.
This year Bloomfest was held September 17 at a newly opened venue The Overlook; a location chosen for its easy access for both east- and west-siders. “When we started, we were very east-side centered. We want to be citywide,” Sue says.” The benefit served as both a friend-raiser and fundraiser, but above all a joy-raiser. “Bloomfest brings in about 40 percent of our operating budget, but it’s just as much about building community,” she adds. The 180 guests who attended included volunteers, donors, and partners both known and new to the BHB network.
“Last year the surgeon general called social isolation a public crisis. This is something we knew intuitively. When I started, I didn’t put it that way, but I knew what we were doing was making a difference,” Sue states. She also agrees that she was a pioneer in a way, organizing all of this before it became more or less widespread, and in fact she has become a mentor herself to BHB-like startups.
“Flowers are the connection, but the touch is the service,” she says. “When we deliver, we don’t spend a long time with someone, just have a conversation. The flowers are the leave behind, but they help people remember they were visited. It’s a random act of kindness. We’ve all received them and know how they can boost morale and bring joy.” For more information, visit bigheartedblooms.org.