Don’t you just love poinsettias? I know I do. Which was why I was delighted to have the chance to spend a whole morning surrounded by these festive plants earlier this week. Who said this job doesn’t have it’s perks?
The occasion, of course, was Hospice and Palliative Care of Chenango’s annual poinsettia sale. It is one of the largest fundraisers of the year for the non-profit organization, which provides compassionate care to the terminally ill. Orders were taken in November, and on Wednesday the plants arrived, ready to be delivered all across the county.
I was excited to help out with the effort again this year, not only because it is such a great cause and there are all those beautiful flowers, but also for the camaraderie among the volunteers. Those who help with this annual effort are some of the nicest, kindest people in our community and it is a pleasure to spend a few hours in their company.
Knowing I needed to be at the Norwich YMCA no later than 8:30 a.m. – which is smack dab in the middle of our morning deadline – I trundled into work even earlier than usual to make sure I had my story for the day completed. As soon as I filed it, I was out the door and headed across the street.
The plants, and most of the other volunteers, arrived before me. The festive blooms had already been separated by size - 6”, 8” and 10” - and sorted by color. There were your traditional reds, of course, as well as the equally delightful whites and pinks. Not to mention the marble variety, whose white and pink blooms I was so enamored by last year.
I was able to restrain myself from squealing with delight, but only just.
Despite the early hour, the space was already a bevy of activity. Poinsettias had already been pulled for some orders, and were ready to be loaded into a waiting van. Using index cards, volunteers were pulling even more plants to fill another order. Two women stood, staplers in hand, ready to attach those same cards to the plastic wrapping designed to protect the delicate botanicals from the frigid temperatures during their journey.
I of course wanted to jump right in and help, but instead I sought out Donna Wood-Craig. Donna is the agency’s director of development and the mastermind behind the highly-coordinated effort. Under her graceful guidance, the sorting and delivering process operates as smoothly and efficiently as a well-oiled machine.
Donna gave me the go-ahead to pitch in where needed, and before long I was in the middle of things. I helped load vehicles – wow, was it cold outside – fetched plants, filled orders and even took my turn with the stapler. All while feeling pretty darn good about volunteering my time. And I was in good company, as I knew I would be.
My comparatively “young” eyes were called in to service a time or two, as a couple of my fellow volunteers had apparently forgotten their glasses. (A revelation which prompted Donna to announce she’d be buying reading glasses in bulk from now on to give out as Christmas gifts.) And together we sorted out a couple of snafus caused by duplicate orders.
I even had a chance to do some actual “delivering,” when I was called upon to help another volunteer, Lucy Baker, make a few local deliveries. A driver had failed to show and Lucy had stepped to take over the route. She drove while I navigated, and it took us barely any time at all to drop off our cargo of poinsettias to Chenango Memorial Hospital, Stanford Gibson Elementary School and Opportunities for Chenango.
We returned to “base,” after which Lucy departed on her final run of the day, to her hometown of Sherburne, and I returned to my previous duties.
The whole process was so efficient that we actually finished a full half hour ahead of schedule. Which is impressive considering a total of 511 plants were sorted and either delivered or prepared for pick up that morning. That’s approximately 100 poinsettias more than last year.
A quick shout-out to my fellow Hospice volunteers Don and Sandy Cooper, Joe and Kathy Brillinger, Darryl and Phyllis Forsythe, Jane Prime, Lucy Baker, Sally Miers, Jim Wysor, Gary Clark, Marv Hamstra, the Sergios and everyone else who gave so freely of their time for this effort. And of course, thank you to Donna for all of her hard work. It was a pleasure, as always.