After the wedding, flowers give new meaning for Tri-Cities elderly, hospice patients
Hundreds of lush flowers got a fresh purpose after the celebration of the wedding between Amanda Mason and Kevin Moe at Terra Blanca Winery & Estate Vineyard in Benton City.
Alexandra RoseLee, owner of White Glove Weddings in Kennewick, combines event planning and floral therapy, a tool she says is important for healing and connection.
She organizes up to a dozen weddings each year, and rents out event supplies and a venue in Kennewick.
Through her nonprofit, WGW Floral Donations, she repurposes flowers from weddings and special events, and delivers them to local assisted living centers, hospices and hospitals within a few days.
Last week, RoseLee dropped off several medium flower arrangements from Mason and Moe’s wedding at Ciel of Tri-Cities senior living facility in Kennewick.
“It’s always such a lovely thing to see the beautiful flowers come into the building,” said Megan Montoya, activity director at Parkview Estates.
“Residents will point out the flowers and touch them to solidify that they’re real. It brings them a lot of joy.”
RoseLee also coordinates with activities staff at the care centers to teach basic floral design classes using deconstructed large arrangements like flower arches and towering centerpieces. Anyone who participates can make and take a small arrangement.
“Floral is considered a form of therapy,” she said. “It helps with cognitive ability, memory and dexterity skills to be able to play with flowers.”
She said that she is always pleasantly surprised by how engaged men are in the classes.
“People in elderly care or memory care facilities are a lost demographic,” she said. “They are visited here and there, but there is not a lot of change in their schedule and lifestyle. I have watched people in elderly care facilities in my family who didn’t get regular visitation and they quickly passed away.”
RoseLee said that almost every weekend out of the year, she picks up flowers from Tri-Cities weddings, nonprofit events and popular venues with flowers left over.
“Flowers have a couple of weeks left of life depending on the type and how they’re cared for,” she said. “With the volume of flowers we end up with at the end of an event, it’s odd that there is a scramble for what to do with such a valuable, pretty thing.”
Her passion for community service stems from her background as a former U.S. Coast Guard member. She started her business in San Diego, planning military weddings, parades, parties and balls.
“We were always throwing away flowers,” she said. “As I attracted a more affluent clientele, they were spending $20,000 on flowers. I started asking if I could take them and disperse them to the elderly at a facility on my way home.”
“We all know that we become more happy when we are around real flowers.”
For anyone interested in donating to WGW Floral Donations, RoseLee requests advance notice and prefers larger arrangements with many stems to host her classes.
