Independent Editor,
My name is Jennifer Hessler, a volunteer with Memorial Healthcare Hospice. I volunteer twice-monthly making arrangements with the Flower Ministry along with Martha Sutton and Gloria Danek. There are numerous other volunteers that help with the Flower Ministry in an array of ways – some deliver flowers to patients, some help with the procuring the flowers for the arrangements and some handle the paperwork. We just started back with the Flower Ministry on Sept. 13 for the first time since COVID restrictions went into effect.
We weren’t sure where we were going to get our flowers going forward as the business that used to donate them to our group can no longer do that. For flowers on Sept. 13, Roger Zick, a hospice volunteer, drove all the way down to southern Michigan and helped his niece pick flowers from her flower patch. He then drove them up to Owosso and we made the arrangements. Roger also helped to deliver the arrangements to patients. There are so many good people in this world!
For our second time, making arrangements on Sept. 30, a local business, Fortitude Farm & Events, volunteered to allow us to pick flowers at their location on S. M-52. There were five volunteers picking flowers to make 36 arrangements for Hospice patients. Lauren Faber greeted us along with Remington (their dog) and showed us to the flower patch. There were Zinnias, Gomphrena, Sunflowers, Statice and numerous other varieties to pick from. It was a joy to spend time in the flower patches picking the flowers. Arrangements were then made the following day and volunteers delivered them to the patients.
I would like to give a huge shout-out to Fortitude for their generosity and to the members of the Hospice volunteer team for making the arrangements and delivering them. It makes me proud to be a member of this volunteer team and a resident of Shiawassee County.
Jennifer Hessler
Memorial Healthcare Hospice volunteer