Bringing Colorful Delights – Flower Empower Luncheon Goes Virtual with Film Premiere
WHEN FLOWER EMPOWER COORDINATOR VALERIE BANKS first heard rumors that California was going to shut down in response to COVID-19, she was worried. “We’ve kept going through fires and the debris flow, but this was different,” she said. “For the first time in the 25 years since the program began, we thought, is this going to stop us?”
At the same time, Toine Overgaag, the president and owner of Westerlay Orchids, a long-time supporter of Flower Empower, made a pledge to give 100,000 orchids to the community at large. Both Overgaag and Banks saw how they could work together to get some of those orchids out Val picks up flowers for arrangements into the community, but it was clear that Flower Empower needed to make a few swift changes to the way it ran.
