October 11, 2017 was Petal It Forward day, an initiative originated by the Society of American Florists to give back to our communities. This event is founded on the concepts of Pay It Forward or Random Acts of Kindness, but we “pay” it forward with flowers!

Here’s how it goes: participating florists surprise unsuspecting strangers by giving them two bouquets; one for the recipient to keep and the other to give away as a surprise to brighten someone else’s day.

It may surprise you to learn that every state in the nation celebrated this holiday. These events are really fun and make a lot of people smile. And as our name says, we’re all about spreading sunshine with flowers!

We had the pleasure of giving away over 150 single flowers at Miss Knockout beauty bar with the help of their staff, and over 50 mixed bouquets in the NW Alphabet District. We were honored to participate in such a unique event and have the opportunity to give a little happiness to our Portland community.

 

Floral Sunshine was featured in an OregonLive article and our owner, Annie Chen, was interviewed on KGW. (See clips below).

A special shout out to our wonderful volunteer, Cynthia, who helped us pass out flowers so we could maintain business as usual. Cynthia emailed us later, saying “Thank you for letting me help pass out bouquets! People really loved your bouquets and I know receiving flowers meant a lot to them.”

Aw… schucks!