For the second year in a row, I attended the Memorial Day Flowers event in Washington DC at Arlington National Cemetery.
For the last 10+ years Ramiro Penaherrera, Executive Director of Memorial Day Flowers Foundation, has led his team of volunteers to the gates of Arlington National Cemetery to honor those fallen, with flowers. Lots of flowers!
Each year a call goes out to the flower world seeking flower donations from the floral industry. And each year flowers start arriving, box by box and pallet by pallet, from Miami based Importers (listed below), Delaware Valley Floral Group and Holland America from California.
This is surely one event where the floral industry steps up and shows respect for those who have died in battle serving the USA. Thank you!
Dealing with all of these flowers at the Cemetery is a huge undertaking as the 1,000 boxes need to be emptied, the bunches un-banded and un-sleeved, cut and placed in a bucket of water. Not a foreign job for those in the business but with volunteers unfamiliar with the process, it takes coordination.
My Brother Stephen Armellini and his daughter Dana are the main contacts for getting this job done and they make it happen along with several others from the floral industry and of course lots of volunteers. Most notably Jeff and Sue Piscitelli from Younger and Sons wholesale Florist in PA. Their help and resources are invaluable to this effort.
Boy Scouts and Jujitsu students, moms and dads and children too were on hand and hands on.
The Foundation works with the US Army which operates the Cemetery to coordinate where flowers are needed and when. We run around delivering buckets of flowers to those locations around the Tomb of the Unknown Solder.
At these locations we hand out flowers to visitors or volunteers so they can place them on as many graves as possible.
It is a very emotional time and sometimes people will tell you their story about a loved one buried there.
The Memorial Day Flowers Foundation also supplies flowers and supports 45 other cemeteries around the USA. With the help of the Bill Doran Company and Mayesh Wholsale, Victory for Veterans supported 10 more cemeteries.
I have put together a video of my time there and hope that you can better understand the feelings that are often hard to express in words.
There were two other events that bear attention. First. Ramiro was invited to ring the bell at the Nasdaq in NYC on Friday May 24. We don’t know how they selected him but if you watch this link you will see for yourself.
Click here for the Nasdaq event (At 90 seconds in)
Second: Stephen Armellini and Jeff Piscitelli both had the honor of placing a wreath (made by Sue Piscitelli) on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which is quite an honor. The event is in my video.
Thanks for reading and thank you flower World for the flowers.
Flower Donations came from the following:
Fresca Farms, MiaFlora Farms, Jet Fresh Flowers, Galleria Farms, USA Bouquet, Passion Growers, Sole Farms. RosaPrima, Choice Farms, Queens Flowers, The Elite Flower, Golden Flowers,
Click here to watch my review on my you yube channel. Please like and share
Enjoy:
Williee Armellini
Editor/ Owner: Flowersandcents.com.
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