With Spring Festivals Canceled, These Farms Will Send Blooms to Isolated Seniors Instead
Usually, dozens of tulip festivals take place around the country in April, featuring thousands and thousands of colorful fresh flowers. But with the new coronavirus forcing events to postpone or cancel for 2020, multiple farms have been left with the dilemma of trying to sell their flowers for other purposes while still following safe social distancing measures. Since blooming tulips can’t be delayed, a couple of farms have decided to use their crop to bring happiness to seniors in assisted living facilities, many of which aren’t allowing visitors right now. Plus, there’s an easy way you can help them do it.
Matthew Benson
Two different farms in the Pacific Northwest, Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm and Tulip Town, are both donating pots of their fresh blooms to seniors at local assisted living homes. You can sponsor a pot or bouquet from either farm online for $15, and they’ll deliver it to a facility to brighten someone’s day.
According to Forbes, Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm usually sells around 9,000 pots of tulips during the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn, Oregon. After the festival was canceled, rather than letting the flowers go to waste, they’ve made them available to buy online and donate to seniors. Each 7-inch pot has between seven and 10 flowers, and you can choose between tulips or daffodils.
After placing your order, Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm will deliver the flowers to a senior home in Oregon. They’ll choose the facility, but you also have the option of including a personalized note to be delivered along with the flowers to help brighten someone’s day even more. If there’s a specific assisted living facility in Oregon that you want your flowers to go to, you can call the farm to see if it’s one of the homes they’re working with.
As of March 31, Wooden Shoe has delivered about 1,700 pots of flowers. They’ve also been following safety and social distancing practices when dropping the donated tulips and daffodils off, including sanitizing the pots and leaving them outside for workers to bring in and hand out to residents.
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Tulip Town, a tulip farm located in Skagit County, Washington, is doing something similar with this year’s tulip crop. After the Skagit County Tulip Festival was canceled, they started the Color for Courage campaign. Now, anyone can go to their website and purchase a$15 bouquet of tulips. The farm is delivering them to seniors at assisted living facilities, but they’ve also given bouquets to fire and police stations, as well as healthcare workers in the community. As of April 1, Tulip Town has delivered almost 900 bouquets to at least 10 different organizations.
No matter where you are in the country, you can sponsor a bouquet or pot of flowers through the farms. It’s one of the easiest ways to spread a little joy while practicing safe social distancing recommendations and supporting U.S. flower farms. If there’s a farm in your community that usually sells fresh blooms in spring, you could also check with them to see if they’re doing anything similar to support your neighbors, local seniors, and first responders.
