More than 400 volunteers participated in the Memorial Day Flowers Foundation’s outreach effort at Arlington National Cemetery. The Foundation proved so successful at organizing volunteers, including local Girl Scouts, that CalFlowers had to organize an additional shipment of flowers in the days leading up to Memorial Day — a last-minute hustle members were happy to undertake, said president Mike Mooney.
An effort to honor fallen service members at Arlington National Cemetery — and at cemeteries around the country — got some serious support from the floral industry over the holiday weekend.
More than 400 volunteers placed almost 140,000 flowers on gravesites or distributed them to grieving family members, thanks to a coordinated effort spearheaded by the Memorial Day Flowers Foundation, a nonprofit based out of Washington, D.C., founded in 2011 and led by Ramiro Peñaherrera, owner of LatinFlor, in Quito, Ecuador, and also the founder of the group Flowers for Kids. Most of the Memorial Day volunteers came from local Boy Scout troops along with floral industry members from all segments.
This year’s effort represented a dramatic increase over last year’s already impressive outreach, in terms of both volunteer efforts and floral industry support, and it brings the organization closer to its ultimate goal of honoring each of the 228,000 headstones and 7,000 burial niche rows at Arlington, said Ami Neiberger-Miller, a spokesperson for the Memorial Day Flowers Foundation.
“Flowers came from Ecuador, Colombia and California,” said Neiberger-Miller, the surviving sister of U.S. Army Spc. Christopher Neiberger, 22, who was killed in action in Iraq in 2007 and is interred in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery. “This was very much a multinational and industry-wide effort.”
Members of the California Association of Flower Growers & Shippers (CalFlowers) provided extensive support — including a last-minute hustle to locate and ship more flowers in the days before Memorial Day, when it became clear that the foundation’s effort to find volunteers to help distribute the flowers had far exceeded expectations, doubling the ranks available in 2015.
Many of the grieving families had traveled hundreds of miles to be at Arlington on Memorial Day, at considerable expense, and wouldn’t otherwise have access to flowers.
“In less than 72 hours, six growers came up with 40,000 additional stems,” and then Armellini Logistics took care of shipping them from California to northern Virginia, said Mike Mooney, president of CalFlowers and the general manager of Dramm & Echter in Encinitas, California.
Many of the 400 volunteers at Arlington National Cemetery had floral industry connections. Indeed, industry support along every step, from flower growers to shippers, wholesalers and retail florists, help make the effort possible.
“It was exciting,” said Mooney, who traveled to Arlington with his wife and three children to be part of the hands-on effort. “All of the flowers, from California and South America, made for a really diverse showing, in terms of the flowers used. The industry stepped up at every step in the process,” from sourcing the flowers to organizing shipping and logistics, including processing at Potomac Floral Wholesale, based in Silver Springs, Maryland.
Peñaherrera, who has five family members buried at Arlington, echoed the sentiment. “We feel blessed to have this many people participating,” he said, including, in addition to CalFlowers, the Wholesale Florist & Florist Supplier Association and Ascolflores, the Association of Colombian Flower Exporters, among other groups. “I think it’s important for us to honor those who serve our country.”
Peñaherrera also noted that Memorial Day “used to be a floral holiday” and was originally known as Decoration Day. Re-incorporating flowers into the holiday is one way to “grow the pie” and unite industry efforts in Colombia, Ecuador and the U.S., he said.
For Mooney, the experience was also deeply moving — and a powerful reminder of the enormous emotional connection between flowers and people, and the important role that flowers can play in healing.
The ultimate goal of the Memorial Day Flowers Foundation is to honor each of the 228,000 headstones and 7,000 burial niche rows at Arlington, said Ami Neiberger-Miller, a spokesperson for the Memorial Day Flowers Foundation and the surviving sister of U.S. Army Spc. Christopher Neiberger, 22, who was killed in action in Iraq in 2007 and is interred in Section 60.
“One of my favorite stories from the day involved a woman who walked at least half a mile, and maybe farther, to find our volunteer center, after she saw another person holding a peony while walking through Arlington,” he said. “Peonies were here husband’s favorite flower. She wanted to place one on his gravesite.”
Mooney said he was especially affected by stories shared among families in Section 60, the final resting place for hundreds of service members who died in Iraq or Afghanistan, along with many of the repatriated American remains found overseas from the Vietnam War, Korean War, and World War II.
Mike Mooney, president of CalFlowers, traveled to Virginia over the weekend with his family, including daughters, Jenavee and Madeline, 10, to help distribute almost 140,000 flowers at Arlington National Cemetery. “It was humbling,” he said of the experience.
“My kids have friends whose families who have paid the ultimate price, and it was humbling for me to be there, and important for me to have my kids with me,” he said, adding that, for many family members, the journey to a relative’s grave is fraught with hardships. “People are coming from far away and they have to figure out how to get to from the airport or a hotel. They have to bear the cost of a hotel or taxi, not to mention the airfare. Once they get here, they’d like to put flowers on the grave, but that’s hard to do in 90-degree heat in a city you don’t know well. One woman told me about how she walked to a grocery store eight years ago, on a holiday weekend with her kids’ in tow, to find flowers for her son’s grave. It took hours. She still remembered it. These families have been through so much. They shouldn’t have to worry about flowers.”
In addition to Arlington National Cemetery, flowers were placed at seven national veterans’ cemeteries around the country. In partnership with the foundation and coordination with the Wholesale Florist & Florist Supplier Association and local wholesalers, more than 200 retail florists and local businesses also distributed roses to the public for placement in area cemeteries, according to Neiberger-Miller, adding that 500 bouquets from CalFlowers were also distributed to families of fallen troops attending a grief support event in Arlington.
Mooney and Neiberger-Miller both stressed that, for them, this year is just the beginning and both say they look forward to an even bigger showing in 2017.
“The act of giving a flower is a very simple, but meaningful gesture that is deeply appreciated by the families of our fallen troops,” she said. “Some families are not able to come to Arlington National Cemetery for Memorial Day, so knowing that the foundation is placing a flower assures families that someone cares and that their loved one is not forgotten.”
Find out more about the Memorial Day Flowers Foundation. Find additional photos and videos documenting the outreach on Facebook.
Top-rated radio station WTOP 103.5 in Washington, D.C., invited The Memorial Day Flowers Foundation for live, on-air interview on Memorial Day. The foundation’s founder, Ramiro Peñaherrera, was joined by Boy Scout volunteers, including Raphael Sogueco and Jack Bacarra of Troop 976 in Vienna, Virginia. Sogueco is the son of Renato Sogueco, the Society of American Florists’ chief information officer.
A number of floral industry volunteers noted that the effort underscored the powerful connection between people and flowers.
