Repeat Roses Delivers Repurposed Event Flowers to Joyful Recipients
Event planner Jennifer Grove grew frustrated over the fact that hundreds of pounds of flowers wind up in the trash after every private and public celebration. Seeing this as a waste of resources, Jennifer recognized that this was an opportunity to change the status quo and founded Repeat Roses, an organization that picks up private and public floral arrangements then matches and delivers them to patients in hospices, cancer treatment centers, mental health facilities, domestic abuse and homeless shelters. Later, they return to donor sites to collect the twice-enjoyed blooms for composting.
Q&A
Event flower arrangements ultimately wind up in a landfill, whether left behind at a corporate meeting or thrown out after a social celebration. Even when guests take them home after a wedding, flowers still wind up in the garbage and head straight to the landfill where they cannot properly decompose. After spending seven years as a wedding and event planner, I witnessed thousands of tons of flowers winding up in the trash week after week. With millions of annual events in the US alone, I recognized an opportunity to shift the paradigm and change the conversation about floral waste. I launched Repeat Roses as a sustainability solution that also creates meaningful social impact in the wedding, social and corporate event industries.
2. What does your company do with the recycled flowers?
Clients hire Repeat Roses to provide a service that gives them “Triple Win.” We create a rewarding giveback by delivering the joy of repurposed flowers to the community (typically patients in hospitals, cancer treatment centers, homeless shelters, mental health facilities, etc). A week later we return to recover our vases and flowers for composting and recycling so that nothing winds up in the landfill. Our business service combines social impact with sustainability while also creating a charitable tax credit opportunity for our private and corporate clients. Win-win-win!
3. Who benefits from a business like yours?
Everyone in the loop wins. From our amazing employees who feel inspired that they are making a positive difference across the globe, to our newlywed and corporate clients who benefit from knowing they are including an eco-responsible element in their event experience, to our nonprofit partners who receive beautiful fresh flowers to distribute to their patients and clients. The emotional health boost that flowers provide creates a meaningful and measurable ripple effect that motivates every single person impacted in our business model.
4. Are you seeing an overall shift in sustainability in our country?
Yes, slowly but surely! With more awareness about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and with more companies and individuals recognizing the importance of sustainability and how it can impact the bottom line, we’re seeing traction day by day. Repeat Roses is on a mission to educate its clients about sustainability with a service that uses a beautiful storytelling element to demonstrate benefits. If we can inspire change and help people and businesses set a precedent for recycling, repurposing, giving back and being more thoughtful about their waste, we’re hopeful our business can help move the needle on the massive waste problem.
4. Tell us about some of the events/businesses you work with.
We’ve repurposed flowers from organizations ranging from celebrity weddings and runway shows to the NFL’s Super Bowl events, like the Vanity Fair Oscars Party and Screen Actors Guild Awards. We also work daily with a variety of financial institutions, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies all looking for ways to bring value to their employees and clients when hosting conferences and large-scale galas. We can provide our standard flower repurposing service (which often means our teams work in the middle of the night to pick up flowers at 3 a.m. after an event has ended) or we provide custom corporate social responsibility activations for team-building events. There is no shortage of creative ways we can work with clients to incorporate our service to meet their brand’s goals and needs to make a positive difference with the joy of flowers.
For more information about Repeat Roses, go to www.repeatroses.com
This piece was featured in the Sept. 30th edition of The Sunday Paper, Maria Shriver’s free weekly newsletter for people with passion and purpose. To get inspiring and informative content like this piece delivered straight to your inbox each Sunday morning, click here to subscribe.
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