Royer’s Flowers & Gifts has donated $1,000 to the Berks County Community Foundation’s Power of the Purse program for women.
Family-owned Royer’s donates $10 to women’s charities for every purchase of its Admiration arrangement, which is available year-round.
Begun by a group of women in 2012, Power of the Purse pools individual donations and awards grants to area nonprofits that work to improve the lives of local women and children.
Photo: Geoff Royer, vice president of central operations, left, and Tom Royer, CEO, of Royer’s Flowers & Gifts, with Rochelle Grey, steering committee, Power of the Purse in Berks County.
Author: Neal
In her words: She was a Christmas baby, but Royer’s designer Linda Stokes is a child of Halloween
I’ve loved Halloween since I was little, growing up in the Reading area.
I remember going around our small neighborhood with my Dad, who would dress up, too, maybe as a clown or in another costume. My mother would stay home and tend to the kids who came trick-or-treating at our house.
Dad definitely was more into it than my mother, but she was a seamstress and made costumes for me and my two older sisters. The best one was the Tin Man from the “Wizard of Oz,” around the time I was in fifth grade.
In those days, Herr’s potato chips came in a cardboard container. That was the basis for my Tin Man’s head, spray-painted silver with cloth underneath it for my comfort. The body was made of cardboard, too. Mom was very crafty.
Family tradition
As I tell my husband, Tom, I never have too much Halloween. I hate to say it: I was born on Christmas Day, but I like Halloween better. It’s a family tradition: my father’s mother used to throw Halloween parties and passed on her decorations to my parents and, ultimately, me.
My two older sisters aren’t passionate about Halloween like I am. I think I went over the limit!
I’ve been with Royer’s since 1984. I’m a designer and a couple years ago added assistant manager responsibilities at the Ephrata store, where I’ve spent most of my years with the company. Before Royer’s, I worked for seven years at a Reading florist.
I used to dress up for Halloween at work. One year, I was a character from the musical “Cats,” complete with ears and a tail. It was hard to work in, though!
Royer’s sells Halloween arrangements and gifts, of course, but I especially love it when customers come in seeking a custom piece. It fires my imagination, and I enjoy the challenge of capturing the customer’s vision.
Besides the arrangements on our website, our store will come up with original pieces, too. I just see what products are in our store at the time and work with them: It might be a pumpkin with a face on it that I incorporate into an arrangement.
We have such a cute line of containers this year, including ceramic mummy heads, that would work great for custom pieces.
But Halloween isn’t just a work thing for me. In fact, it’s an even bigger part of my life at home in Reamstown.
Decorating at home
We don’t get many trick-or-treaters, but we decorate our house inside and out and host a themed costume party every year. There’s a pinata (it’s funny to see adults dive-bombing for candy when the pinata opens) and a pumpkin-pitching contest (launched from our deck to a target below).
As with so many traditions this year, the party is on hiatus because of the pandemic. For that reason, I’m only decorating three rooms instead of the whole house.
My antique pieces were made in the United States and Germany. These lanterns and die-cuts, featuring cats, witches, devil faces, are made of paper and cardboard and are fragile. I display them year-round in a curved glass cabinet.
I keep adding to my collection, too. This year, I bought four die-cut pieces from the 1920s featuring a pirate, scarecrow, skeleton and witch.
My collection also includes four mannequins and 10 animatronic characters that I dress up and display in the house. I must have 20 to 25 plastic totes filled with Halloween items; they take up an entire room in the house and three-quarters of Tom’s workshop.
Tom’s a good sport when it comes to indulging my love of all things Halloween, but even he has limits.
One year, I tried to put handkerchiefs on our two huskies. Tom said, no, we don’t need to dress up our dogs.
‘Checkered Harvest’ winning entry in Royer’s name-the-arrangement contest
Lori Macchi describes herself as a “fall weather person.”
“I’ll take that season any day,” she said.
Macchi’s fondness for fall and flowers made her a prime candidate to enter Royer’s contest to name a mounded pumpkin arrangement.
Her entry, Checkered Harvest, was selected as the winner among more than 1,400 online submissions received Sept. 14-18. Macchi’s prize is one of the arrangements.
The all-around arrangement measures 11.5 inches high, 13 inches long and 12 inches wide. It features a six-inch white ceramic pumpkin, country buffalo gingham bow, roses, alstroemeria, carnations, poms and hypericum.
Click here if you’d like to order a Checkered Harvest arrangement.
Royer’s Flowers name-the-arrangement online contest runs through Sept. 18
In fairy tales, pumpkins turn into horse-drawn carriages.
At Royer’s Flowers & Gifts, one lucky person will turn a pumpkin into a prize simply by entering this year’s name-the-arrangement contest.
The person who submits the winning name will receive a complimentary mounded pumpkin arrangement, retail value $44.99.
The all-around arrangement measures 11.5 inches high, 13 inches long and 12 inches wide. It features a six-inch white ceramic pumpkin, country buffalo gingham bow, roses, alstroemeria, carnations, poms and hypericum.
To enter the contest, visit royers.com/contest. Limit one entry daily per email address, Sept. 14-18.
Reading third-grader Rodriguez wins Royer’s Kids Club birthday card contest
Angelisa Rodriguez loves to draw.
“That’s why I figured she’d be perfect for that contest,” said her mother, Tanairi.
Indeed, she was. Angelisa is the winner of this year’s Royer’s Flowers & Gifts Kids Club birthday card design contest.
Angelisa, 7, is entering third grade at Glenside Elementary School in Reading.
Her design, featuring a couple of smiling flowers and the words, “Flowers for your birthday because you’re beautiful,” will adorn the electronic card that kids club members will receive on their birthdays in the coming year.
Angelisa’s prize is a free flower delivery on his next birthday.
The Royer’s Kids Club is free to ages 5 to 12. With parental permission, children may register for the kids club at any Royer’s store or online at royers.com/kidsclub. Kids club benefits include a membership card, online activities, a quarterly e-mail newsletter, contests and in-store events.
Thank you for helping ‘Royer’s Stems Hunger’ benefit 11 area food banks
Royer’s Flowers & Gifts’ annual food drive collected more than 1,100 pounds of non-perishable items to benefit 11 food banks in the company’s seven-county market.
Royer’s Stems Hunger, as the food drive is known, ran June 27-July 4 at our 16 stores.
The recipient food banks were:
Helping Harvest in Berks County; New Hope Ministries and Salvation Army of Carlisle in Cumberland County; Hershey Food Bank and Manna Food Pantry at Pennbrook UCC in Dauphin County;
South Central Community Action Programs in Franklin County; Columbia Food Bank, Ephrata Area Social Services and Food Hub/Lancaster County Council of Churches in Lancaster County; Lebanon County Christian Ministries; St. Matthew Food Pantry in York County.
Food drive donors received a free carnation for each non-perishable food item they contributed, up to six per visit.
Royer’s Stems Hunger has topped 1,100 pounds in each of its 10 years for a total of nearly nine tons collected.
Royer’s Kids Club seeking birthday card entries through July 15
They say that it’s better to give than to receive.
But you could do both if you win this year’s Royer’s Kids Club birthday card design contest.
The winning design will adorn the email birthday card that every kids club member receives on his or her special day. The winning artist will receive a free flower delivery on his or her birthday.
The contest is open to kids club members, ages 5 to 12. If you aren’t a kids club member yet, you can register for free at royers.com/kidsclub
To enter the contest, simply download the entry form here, create your design and drop it off at your nearest Royer’s store. The winner will be chosen in late July.
Good luck to everyone!
Royer’s Flowers’ annual food drive returns June 27-July 4
Summer already was a time of acute food shortages, especially for children who lose access to free and reduced-price meals through schools.
This year, the pandemic is compounding the problem, with millions of Americans seeking help from food banks for the first time.
Royer’s Flowers & Gifts is continuing to do its part to combat hunger with the return of its Royer’s Stems Hunger food drive, June 27-July 4, to benefit area food banks.
For each non-perishable food item, donors will receive a free carnation, up to a maximum of six carnations per visit. Donations may be dropped off at any Royer’s store during normal business hours.
Lebanon-based Royer’s (royers.com) operates 15 Royer’s stores in Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties. Sister company Stephenson’s Flowers & Gifts has one Harrisburg store.
Introducing a hopeful new coloring page for these uncertain times
The Royer’s Kids Club has offered coloring pages since its earliest days.
But we’ve never had one quite as poignant as the new one you see above. We created it in response to the fear and anxiety that children and even a lot of adults are experiencing in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
This new design shows a strong, vibrant iris rising out of a crack in a sidewalk and the powerful words of Corita Kent (1918-1986), an artist, educator and advocate for social justice.
Those words come from a longer quote: “Love the moment,” Kent said. “Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each is to succeed.”
For many of us, these are dark moments because of the harm the pandemic has done to people’s health and to the economy. We are fearful for the safety and well-being of ourselves, of our family and friends, of our fellow human beings.
In another quote, Kent noted that there’s a “huge danger” in pretending that awful things don’t happen.
“But you need enough hope to keep going. Flowers grow out of darkness.”
The blue iris, for instance, is sometimes described as symbolizing “faith and hope.” And those are two qualities that will serve us well in the days, weeks and months to come as each of us plays a part in the fight against the pandemic.
For kids club members and their parents alike, we hope you’ll download our “Flowers Grow Out of Dark Moments” coloring page, make it completely your own by coloring it, and give it a place of prominence in your home: refrigerator, window, bedroom wall.
We’d love to see what you come up with and share pictures of your work on our social media pages. Photos can be emailed to marketing@royers.com.
As Corita Kent said, we need hope. Perhaps this simple coloring page, after you’ve brought it to life in your unique way, can be a beacon of hope to you and your family.
Dark moments don’t last. Hope endures.
Keep cooped-up children busy with free Royer’s Kids Club activity pages
The coronavirus pandemic already is altering our lives in ways that would have seemed unimaginable just weeks ago.
Instead of going to school, participating in sports or visiting friends, children will be home. And while nothing is better than having the whole family together, it can lead to stressful moments.
Keeping the kids busy is important. The Royer’s Kids Club can help.
We have a bunch of activity pages that can be downloaded for free from our website.
Children can:
- Give a Royer’s delivery truck a fresh look
- Decorate the exterior of a Royer’s store for spring
- Test their sense of direction in a flower maze
- Challenge their reading skills with a word find
What’s more, we’d love to share some of the completed work on our social media pages. Just take a photo of the page(s) and email them to marketing@royers.com.
We know these are challenging times, but we’ll get through them together. In the meantime, we hope everyone stays healthy and productive.
We look forward to seeing you in person at a future Royer’s Kids Club event.