WHEATFIELD, N.Y. — Valentine's Day will be here before you know it, and we're celebrating Western New York with a woman who is starting something called Hearts in Bloom Buffalo to give flowers to widows on Valentine's Day.
Catherine Szabad was inspired to start Hearts in Bloom Buffalo by a woman in North Carolina who started her own campaign to deliver flowers to widows on Valentine's Day.
"She happened to deliver flowers to her child's teacher and said jeez, how many other people out there are kind of forgotten on this day?" said Catherine Szabad. "I had said, I wish Buffalo had something like this, and she said, well, I can help you get it started, so I said, yeah, this is what I'm doing."
In the months since, Szabad has been busy getting nominations from people, taking a college course to learn how to make flower arrangements, and getting donations for the gift bags.
"The day before, we're going to be filling the gift bags, and we're going to have people organizing and arranging the flowers, and then I was trying to reach out to some floral designers who are not going to be working on Valentine's Day to maybe kind of act as a final check before the flowers go out," said Catherine Szabad. "My goal is every year that whoever this recipient is, that they'll be able to receive flowers every year on that day because we never want anyone to know they were forgotten."
Szabad still needs volunteers to help put the bags together and make deliveries on Valentine's Day.
"Honestly, I think that will be the best part, deliver the items to these people that have no idea that they're coming," said Catherine Szabad.
There is a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money for the gift bags. You can also sign up to volunteer by emailing Catherine Szabad at heartsinbloom@gmail.com.