Business & Tech
Viewfinder: 'Good Neighbor Day' Celebrated with Roses
Wesley Berry Flowers hands out 12,000 blooms at its four Metro Detroit locations: Take one and pass the rest along.
Neighbors in the West Bloomfield business community and elsewhere came to in West Bloomfield Wednesday for roses as part of a "Good Neighbor Day" celebration.
The “holiday” is a national promotion designed by floral wire service FTD Flowers to give away one dozen roses to every customer with the intent that each customer keep one and give 11 away.
“We’ve been doing it for 11 years and it grows every year,” West Bloomfield store manager Bridget Dobrowolski said. “It promotes community and it starts a chain reaction. Someone gets one and they come and get a dozen and they give some. Someone was just here to take some to a nursing home and shut-ins.”
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With 12,000 flowers going out its doors at four Metro Detroit locations, including one in Commerce and two in Detroit, dozen bunches of red, yellow, pink and various rose colors found their way across southeast Michigan.
Many went to medical facilities.
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“I'll keep one and give the rest to cancer survivors,” said Carol Lee of Sarasota, Florida.
Dobrowolski knows the promotion is a great opportunity for people who can’t afford the gift of flowers.
“In this economy, a lot of people can’t afford flowers but they can today,” she said.
Many employees from surrounding businesses were scurrying for the free flowers to present to their customers and neighbors.
Waitresses from , chefs and customers were happy to keep the good vibe flowing.
“The neighbor next door just told me about it – Five Guys,” said Rodney Tucker of Detroit. “I’m going to give them to my wife.”
employee Yvonne Hare from West Bloomfield heard about the promotion from one of her customers and walked over to help spread more roses.
“I’m going to pass them out to a lot of my clients over there,” she said.
A trio of waitresses from Olga’s Kitchen were happy to surprise their customers with roses. Brandy Baker, Alana Jennings and Amber Johnson presented roses to known and unknown customers today.
“We wanted to get them for our customers and staff – we have a lot of staff,” Baker said.
“We do have a lot of regulars who come in,” Jennings added. “We’ll start it off with ‘hi, and here’s a rose.’ ”
“I’m just going to give them out to random people,” Johnson said.
