Floral Wholesaler Mayesh to Donate Thousands of Flowers for Oct. 16 Giveaway

The Society of American Florists’ Petal It Forward event uses the language of flowers to arm Portlanders with random acts of kindness.

Fresh flowers brightening up WW's office. (Andrew Jankowski)
By Andrew Jankowski

Miley Cyrus can buy herself flowers, but Portlanders can get them for free on Wednesday, Oct. 16, thanks to the national flower wholesaler Mayesh. The company’s Portland branch (no pun intended) joins the Pacific Northwest Florist Association and hundreds of other florists in the Society of American Florists’ annual Petal It Forward event, which will see thousands of flowers donated as pairs of bouquets: one to take home, and one to pass on to another stranger. Or, if you’ve said anyone “deserves their flowers” in the past year, now’s your chance to give them.

Mayesh is best known to visitors of the Portland Flower Market on Swan Island, where it has sold fresh-cut flowers of every color and size for over a decade. The Portland Flower Market will also pass out fresh bouquets, should anyone want a surer chance of brightening up their spaces and a stranger’s day. Roxie Amoroso, a PIF organizer, says teams will also be out at the South Waterfront, the south end of Powell’s City of Books, Grant High School, Beverly Cleary Elementary School, the Adidas headquarters campus and Porrtland International Airport.

“[It] was no easy feat, giving strangers anything,” Amoroso tells WW via email. “Even just flowers.”

A SAF survey enhances a 2005 Rutgers University study by Jeannette Haviland-Jones, Ph.D., on the emotional wellness benefits flowers offer. Though most people enjoy flowers at home and at work (and for really just about any reason), the survey notes that only four in ten Americans have used florists in their relationships. This could mean that people are getting their flowers elsewhere, but the survey does demonstrate the mental and emotional wellness benefits getting flowers can offer, for others and ourselves.

“It’s delightful to see someone unexpectedly receive flowers, it’s fun [sic] to see their eyes light up,” said Amy Gebhardt, Mayesh’s Portland general manager, in a press release. “People love to get flowers ‘just because’ so we want to create random smiles and give people a chance to do the same for someone else.”

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