Lisa Shafer and her twin 10-year-old daughters rang the doorbell of a house in Stillwater on Sunday afternoon with a bouquet of Valentine’s Day flowers in hand.
Answering the door was Rita Youngren, whose husband, Orlan, died in October 2022.
This is the fourth year that Youngren has received a bouquet of Valentine’s Day flowers from Bailey’s Bouquets, a Stillwater-based nonprofit organization devoted to “spreading kindness and love through flowers.”
“Isn’t it amazing? It’s really special,” Youngren said. “I can’t say enough about what it means. The first year was really a nice surprise. (Orlan) always remembered Valentine’s Day.”
Bailey’s Bouquets started with 12 bouquets delivered to 12 widows a few days before Valentine’s Day in February of 2022.
On Sunday, 20 volunteers gathered at St. Mary’s and made and delivered more than 80 bouquets in and around the St. Croix River Valley.
“This isn’t just about flowers,” said Michelle Bailey, 84, of Stillwater, co-founder of the organization. “It’s about reminding someone that they are not alone, that they are loved and not forgotten.”
‘A holiday that can be hard’
Bailey, 84, and her daughters, Danielle Bailey, also of Stillwater, and Patrice Scelzo, of Chicago, started delivering bouquets on Super Bowl Sunday in 2022. Michelle Bailey, a retired social worker, was facilitating a small grief group at the Churches of St. Michael and St. Mary at the time. Her husband, Richard, died of a stroke in 2020 at the age of 78.
“Danielle happened to hear a story about a florist in North Carolina who did this,” Michelle Bailey said. “People could nominate widows, and the florist would deliver bouquets to them for free. She said, ‘Mom, would you like to do that for your group? We could do bouquets for everyone in the group.’”
The Baileys bought flowers and created 12 bouquets in pint fruit jars in Danielle Bailey’s kitchen. They then delivered them to the widows in the group.
The next year, they delivered 24 bouquets. Bailey’s Bouquets has grown exponentially since then.
They chose Super Bowl Sunday as the day to make and deliver their “Widow’s Project” bouquets because it is the Sunday before Valentine’s Day.
“That’s a holiday that can be hard,” Michelle Bailey said.
Once a widow is nominated for a bouquet, they’ll get a bouquet every year thereafter. “Once you’re on the list, you stay on the list,” she said. “If you were on in 2022, you’re still on.”
The bouquets are made and delivered free of charge to widows in the St Croix River Valley.
‘People … want to pass on the kindness’
The mission has been so successful that the Baileys last year decided to form the nonprofit organization and create and send bouquets throughout the year “to help anyone who may be grieving,” Danielle Bailey said.
“Grief affects us all,” Danielle Bailey said. “I miss my dad on my birthday, for example, so giving a bouquet when someone misses a loved one can brighten their day. … It’s not just on Valentine’s Day that you’re dealing with grief, right?”
Bailey’s Bouquets purchases flowers and greens at a discount from Rose Floral in Stillwater, Ladybug and Blooms, a cut flower farm in Lake Elmo and Trader Joe’s in Woodbury, Danielle Bailey said.
“People understand and love what we’re doing and want to pass on the kindness,” she said.
On Saturday, Michelle Bailey bought flowers at Trader Joe’s, and the employee who helped her load them into her car asked what they were for.
“Well, his father died two years ago yesterday, and February is a really tough month for his mom,” she said. “I said, ‘Where does your mom live?’ He said, ‘Woodbury.’ I said, ‘We’ll get her a bouquet.’ So she’s on our list today.”
“Stories like those happen all the time,” Michelle Bailey said. “There are so many providential kinds of things that occur that we just know the hand of the Lord is in it. He keeps hitting us up the side of the head, saying ‘Go here, go there.’”
In October, Bailey’s Bouquets was nominated to receive a grant from the Power of 100 Women Greater Stillwater Chapter, a philanthropic organization that meets twice a year to support a local nonprofit organization. Each woman gives $100.
Top honors — and the $10,000 grant — went to CAST (Citizens Against Sex Trafficking), but so many women attended the event that Bailey’s Bouquets and another organization, Bridge to Books, received $4,000 each, said Taylor Housley Pass, who along with her mother, Sen. Karin Housley, R-Oak Park Heights, co-founded the Stillwater chapter.
Pass, who nominated Bailey’s Bouquets for a grant, said she learned about the organization from Jackie Blair, a neighbor in Oak Park Heights who received a bouquet from Bailey’s Bouquets last year.
“I was dropping a loaf of sourdough bread off for Jackie last year, and she told me that someone dropped flowers off at her door,” Pass said. “She said that I needed to get in contact with (them) because it had made her day. … They do so much for our community.”
Blair, whose husband, Max, died in July 2024 at the age of 49, said she was profoundly moved by the bouquet she received last year.
“When you go through a loss like that, there’s a lot of fear and shock that comes with it, so when you get a surprise of someone doing such a nice gesture, it just means so much more than it would otherwise,” said Blair, the mother of two children. “You just don’t know how special it is. It’s a bouquet of flowers to other people, but to me, it meant so much more.”
“It showed me that even in the hardest moments, there are people who pay attention, who care, and who choose to act — even if they don’t know you personally,” she said.
“Valentine’s Day is a very intimate holiday,” she said. “It’s kind of like your anniversary. It’s only really special to you and your husband, so when you come towards these first holidays, you kind of prepare yourself to be alone. But when someone, because they’re a widow, knows that that particular day or particular season is harder than others, it just means so much because they know. They sweep in in those moments where you have prepared yourself for a really hard time, and they brighten it.”
A day of flower drops
Each widow gets a call from Michelle Bailey the day before the Super Bowl, so they know to expect a “flower drop” on Sunday afternoon.
The group uses special decorations for the bouquets and items such as juice jars and teacups for the vases.
“It’s basically ‘designer’s choice,’” said Danielle Bailey, who works as a corporate event planner for a medical company.
One of the designers volunteering on Sunday afternoon was Heidi Leeson, of Hudson, who received one of the Baileys’ first bouquets in 2022. Clark Leeson, her husband of 44 years, died in 2008.
“You just want to cry when you get it,” she said. “You want to weep because somebody loves you. It’s very sweet, and it’s very simple, and it’s very beautiful. It just reminds you of the fragility and the beauty of life. It’s hard, if you’re not a widow, to understand, but it’s true.”
Roxanne Jenkins, who lives in White Bear Lake, said she began volunteering with the group after she heard about it from her longtime friend Teresa Hoffbeck, of Stillwater.
“I said, ‘I want in. I want to do this, too,’” said Jenkins, as she created a bouquet out of roses, carnations, greens and some berries. “And my mom (Ann Emerson) is a recipient, so we’ll be delivering one to her today. Everyone who gets one is so grateful. It just warms them up during a cold February. They feel loved, and they feel remembered, and it kind of breaks down that isolation a little bit. If we can bring just a little bit of warmth, we’re all in.”
Each bouquet contains a handwritten note. Among the messages delivered on Sunday: “May your memories keep you in comfort during this time.” “You are loved and never alone.” “One second, one minute, one hour at a time.” “We see you and love you.” “May your favorite memories carry you through.”
Blair said that every widow she has told about Bailey’s Bouquets immediately wants to donate to the organization, she said. “There’s something about it that resonates deeply with anyone who has walked this path,” she said.
Learning about the organization “shifted something” in Blair, she said.
“Their mission is rooted in noticing people who are carrying heavy things — and offering a moment of beauty, compassion, and acknowledgment,” she said. “Being a young widow is a world you don’t understand until you’re living it, and once you’re in it, you realize how the older widows and the ones walking the same path take care of each other in ways that are often unspoken. Sometimes there simply are no words for the journey, so we show up through small acts of kindness. This gesture felt like that kind of care — a reminder that even in the most lonely of times, including a day like Valentine’s Day, there is still care and a sign that you are not alone.”
Danielle Bailey gave Blair a hug after delivering her bouquet on Sunday.
“You’re so wonderful,” Blair said. “Thank you. Next year, I’m going to be helping you do this. I just didn’t think I could do it today.”
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