With a new growing season here we are about to open up our flower stand again as the flowers start to grow and bloom. This will be our fifth year with the little white stand on the corner of our property. It has come a long way and we will continue to keep growing and adding more to help the pollinators for as long as we can. This post is a brief history of our stand and why it has become so meaningful to us. As I write this I am already teary-eyed because the memories of getting to this point will always be treasured.

The 2020 Pandemic

The stand idea started back in 2020 during the beginning of one of the scariest times in recent memory for our country. Little did we know how deadly the thief COVID-19 would be to many families worldwide. It was a scary time as people began to hoard items such as toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and even fabric and elastic to make masks. I remember sewing over 100 masks for friends and family in my community to try to help in any way possible. I was limited in what I could do but God gave me the gift of sewing and being a gardener.

With food so scarce and it being a hard time economically for folks, our garden was very productive that year. We noticed that people began to make gardens where they hadn’t before but little did some know how to maintain their gardens and a lot of their produce dried up or weeds overtook them. I have had quite a few years under my belt with gardening and started to help people online to answer any questions during that scary and uncertain time. Jason and I drove to different towns and I remember seeing so many new gardens and raised beds put in. Some people used to refer to these gardens as “Victory Gardens” back in the World War years. With our extra produce, we decided to build a produce stand to share with our neighbors and anyone else who drove past it. The materials used to build this stand hold another special story on its own.

A Pregnancy Support Center and an Old Shed

A few years before 2020 my father, husband, and I volunteered at a local pregnancy support center. I had been volunteering with my dad at this center since high school, and it was where I decided to fulfill my community service requirements for graduation that my high school required for students. I remember starting in the baby clothing room to make layettes for young mothers and their babies at the old location. When we moved to the new location the center decided to tear down an old shed and buy a new one with more space for baby items for the center.

My father being a very talented and skilled carpenter looked at the old shed and saw there was still valuable wood to salvage. For as long as I can remember, he would salvage materials, especially wood that could be broken down and saved for any future projects. The center did not have any use for it and told my father, Jason and I we could have the material as it would help to not have to dispose of it. Some of the wood went to my father and some we took back to our new home to use on projects. At that time, we had no idea that this salvaged wood would soon become material to build our flower and produce stand.

Losses and Kindness

A year later the thief COVID-19 claimed another life, this time it was my father’s. On October 27th, 2021 my father passed away traumatically after a long battle and hospitalisation. This put me in a very depressed state but still, I had to keep going. I remember asking God for strength to help me keep my mind busy as I could not stop hearing my father’s heart monitor and telling the nurse “ok” to turn off the machine. I was traumatised by constantly reliving this quick and sudden event and I prayed for something healthy to get involved in that would help me see beauty again in the depths of so much darkness and ugliness. It came through a project called Growing Kindness.

Growing Kindness and the Flower Stand

Growing Kindness became a breath of fresh air and hope in such a dark time. I joined this project to use my talents to grow flowers with the dahlia tubers the project sent me to grow, tend to, and give to anyone who needed kindness and hope in their life. I used this opportunity to give out flowers at the stand that was made for the pandemic and also to give flower bouquets to people in our community. These bouquets are free and honestly, I am not sure why anyone would want to charge for these flowers if anyone knew the story and history of this amazing project and its impact as I began to see first hand. The stories that people shared with me as they picked up flowers at the stand or the bouquets we delivered made me realize there is a lot of hurt in this world and I was not the only one hurting. There were people I talked to who had sudden losses and there were just no words but to show care with flowers to say “We care, and you matter” The flowers filled in the unsaid words.

Pollinator Sanctuary

Last year (2023), we turned the area behind the stand into a pollinator sanctuary/haven/habitat/patch (it has many names)! This began when a friend heard about the stand and surprised us with a bunch of seeds on our front porch. Seeds that included vegetables, strawflowers, zinnias, and bachelor buttons. It was an incredible gift in honor of her son who also tragically passed away a year before and she wanted these to be planted in honor of him. She called them “Adam’s Seeds”.

I remember sitting on my porch staring down at the stand and thinking “I want to make that a memorial flower garden” making a garden for those who left us too soon. The more I thought about it the more sad it made me and I told Jason I wanted it to be a happy place. When people come by I want them to feel and see hope from the creator in an ugly world filled with hurt, pain, and loss. I remember when I lost my mom (to a blood clot after heart surgery in 2019) it was the little things like butterflies, flowers, insects, and birds that showed me peace when I was trying to find answers. I decided instead of a place of sadness let’s make it a place of hope and wildflowers for the pollinators. Jason will be adding honey bees this year and this patch will be a haven for them!

A Little Library

In October of last year, we also added a Little Free Library in honor of my father who passed away. I was always a little free library geek since I started a book club with Amy Clipston and would drop her books and bookmarks in the Little Free Libraries in nearby towns and other places. I mean I was obsessed and they never existed when I was a child and if they did I would try to find every one of them! I always had trouble reading as a child until I took a program called SOAR where to this day a teacher named Ms. Ferrel (thank you Ms. Ferrel if you are reading this) opened the door for me about how to read and I have loved to read ever since. Little Free Libraries are so underrated and my father who also loved to read (when he had the time), shared his knowledge and experience and his house had so many books I thought this would be a nice way to honor him. My husband built the little library and we decided to add books that can introduce children to nature, gardening, wildlife, farming, insects, and that theme for any child who stopped by the stand with their parent. We are so happy to be on the Little Free Library maps!

Here’s to a New Year at the Stand

We are looking forward to a new year with our stand sharing extra produce and flowers and even adding a few more additions as we continue to grow. We are so grateful for the support of the community and we hope we can continue to serve and bring some hope and joy to anyone who stops by.