Where Are the Burkett Farm Blooms Going?
Our partnership with The Flower Shuttle shares the joy of cut flowers with those experiencing poverty, terminal illness, sickness, or disability
Want to see farmers go gooey with joy? Just show up when flower season starts in early March. The first flower varieties to bloom are some of the most beautiful, and they act as a powerful mood-lifter. Nothing says “Congrats! You made it through winter!” like neon orange poppies or easter egg pink tulips dotting the garden beds.
But how do flowers fit into our mission here at Burkett Farm? It’s not just the dopamine boost: these beautiful blooms help us support our community in two fundamental ways.
First, through fundraising. We donate flowers to a local florist, The English Garden, who in turn makes an in-kind donation to our non-profit community partner. Cydney and her team have been long-time partners of our project, and their support raised $6,500 for anti-poverty groups last year.
The other key way that flowers factor into our work is through our partnership with the Flower Shuttle. This group of dedicated volunteers (on average 100 people each week!) organize a daily logistical concert of sourcing and upcycling flowers, building arrangements, and delivering them to organizations that serve people who are experiencing poverty, terminal illness, sickness, or disability who otherwise wouldn’t get fresh flowers.
“Everyone loves the Burkett Farm flowers, they’re just so beautiful and fresh.”
Flower Shuttle volunteers arrange upcycled and donated flowers into bouquets for delivery to different community organizations around the Triangle. (Photo courtesy of The Flower Shuttle.)
Our partnership with Flower Shuttle was born out of the pandemic. When everything shut down in the spring of 2020, it was peak spring flower season - almost overnight our farm manager, Jamie, had a field of flowers ready to harvest with nowhere to take them. Potential restaurant partners and florist partners saw their business evaporate, and had no need for additional flower stock. “I came across the Flower Shuttle, and reached out to them to see if they could take a few buckets one week,” says Jamie. Now, four years later, Flower Shuttle volunteers pick up twice a week from our farm: Tuesdays and Fridays, from March to October.
On Tuesdays, the Burkett Farm blooms head to Transitions Life Care hospice center in Cary, New Bern House (which provides transitional housing for families experiencing homelessness), and the Women’s Center (Wake County’s only day shelter for single women).
On Fridays, pick ups from our farm are fashioned into bouquets and delivered to Rex Hospital. The Flower Shuttle volunteers leave the bouquets on the visitors’ desk, so that visitors can select arrangements and take them up to their loved ones. Eileen Taylor, the Flower Shuttle’s president, recalls one particularly memorable story from during the height of the pandemic, when a teenage boy came to the hospital to visit his grandmother. Due to COVID isolation protocols, he wasn’t allowed to go up to her room to see her. He picked out a bouquet of purple flowers that the Flower Shuttle had left at the visitor’s desk (purple was his grandmother’s favorite color), and the nurse on call took them up to her room to give them to her, while he watched from outside through the window. Though he wasn’t able to be with her in person, this little bouquet of flowers was a vehicle to express his love and care for her.
“We get thank you cards from people who have had relatives at hospice that received our flowers. We meet people who have never had a bouquet of cut flowers before; it’s the first time they’re exposed to this. They come to look forward to the weekly flower delivery,” she says. Eileen notes that multiple studies have shown that flowers can boost mental health and even brain activity. Overall, the Flower Shuttle delivers to more than 70 different organizations, averaging about 1,000 bouquets a week, with volunteer teams picking up and dropping off Monday through Sunday.
There’s a sustainability impact as well. Most of the flowers that the Flower Shuttle collects are rescued from the trash. Leftover bouquets from Trader Joe’s, Costco, and Whole Foods make up the majority of the inventory. This year, the group will also repurpose all of the flowers from the Art in Bloom installations at NCMA at the close of the exhibit. And of course, there are the buckets of blooms grown sustainably at our farm. “The Burkett Farm partnership is so special,” says Eileen. “Everyone loves the Burkett Farm flowers, they’re just so beautiful and fresh.”