Royer’s Flowers & Gifts’ annual food drive collected 1,381 pounds of nonperishable items for the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank and Helping Harvest, formerly Greater Berks Food Bank.
The Royer’s Stems Hunger event, which took place June 22-July 6, has collected more than eight tons of food since it began in 2011.
Royer’s East York store collected the most pounds of food among our 16 locations.
Donors received a free carnation for each food item they contributed, up to six per visit. Besides Royer’s stores, eight Drayer Physical Therapy Institute locations in the area served as drop-off locations.
We are grateful to everyone who contributed to the success of this year’s food drive.
Category: News
Red Lion sixth-grader wins Royer’s Kids Club birthday card design contest
Madalyn Yorgy of Red Lion, York County, is a creative 11-year-old.
“She loves crafts and theater,” said her mother, Rachel. “She loves to sing.”
Madalyn, who will be entering sixth grade, shoots movies, draws and colors adult coloring books.
“You name it,” Rachel said, “and she makes it.”
That experience no doubt contributed to her winning this year’s Royer’s Kids Club birthday card design contest.
Her colored design of flowers and the words, “Bloom: It’s your birthday!,” will be featured on the electronic card that kids club members will receive on their birthdays in the coming year. Madalyn’s prize is a free flower delivery on her 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 at royers.com/kidsclub. Kids club benefits include a membership card, online activities, a quarterly e-mail newsletter, contests and in-store events.
Royer’s Kids Club offers free back-to-school event Aug. 17
We’ll celebrate the start of a new school year with a free Royer’s Kids Club event on Aug. 17.
Children ages 5 to 12 will have an opportunity to create an arrangement featuring lavender and yellow daisy pompons, limonium, and a back-to-school stick-in in an orange diamond-cut vase.
Time slots are available at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Registration is required by calling the nearest Royer’s store.
Send these Royer’s arrangements anywhere in the continental U.S. for $9.99
Family-owned Royer’s Flowers & Gifts has been a local florist for more than 80 years, with a commitment to delivering farm-fresh flowers and top-notch customer service.
That won’t ever change.
But that’s not stopping Royer’s from offering its local touch and original designs to a national audience.
Royer’s has introduced 12 new arrangements that can be shipped from its Lebanon, Pa., headquarters to anywhere in the continental United States for $9.99.
The arrangements, ranging in price from $44.99 to $74.99, require no arranging on the part of the recipient.
“Whether they’re shipping to Maine or California, North Dakota or Oklahoma, these arrangements will arrive looking like they came from the local florist,” said Tom Royer, the third-generation CEO. “And they are – the local florist in Lebanon, Pa.”
He noted that unlike some other online florists, Royer’s has no hidden fees or add-on costs.
“It’s just the stated price of the arrangement, which includes a glass vase, and the $9.99 FedEx delivery charge,” Tom said.
‘Fresher than local florists can provide’
Royer’s has offered a limited direct-ship program for years, but the new arrangements are more elaborate and more than double the number of options available to customers.
The arrangements are hand-crafted in our Lebanon store and packed and shipped by our central design department, which supplies fresh arrangements to our 16 stores in Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties.
“With the efficiency of our supply chain, central design department and shipping operation, we can deliver flowers all over the United States that are even fresher than what most local florists can provide in their own markets,” Tom said.
Tom and Geoff Royer, vice president of central operations, make regular trips to South American flower farms to check on the quality of the product they are buying. In the run-up to Valentine’s Day, they will inspect roses in the field that within two weeks are being delivered to customers in central Pennsylvania.
“We’ve developed an incredibly nimble operation in the eight-plus decades since my grandmother started growing and selling African violets to factory workers in Lebanon,” Tom said. “Now our customers have a more robust menu of Royer’s original arrangements they can send to 48 states for just $9.99 each. And they can take comfort in knowing the arrangements will arrive beautiful and fresh, no assembly required.”
M is for Mother’s Day and Morning News
Kids love flowers.
“What kid hasn’t picked flowers out of the yard and carried them inside?,” said Woody Felty, Royer’s vice president of merchandising.
Woody visited Fox 43 on May 2 to discuss Mother’s Day, which is May 11. He appeared in-studio with Fox 43 Morning News co-anchor Amy Lutz.
“My daughter thinks the yellow ones that are growing in the grass are, in fact, flowers,” Lutz said. “I have not had the heart to tell her otherwise.”
“They’re still pretty, aren’t they?” Woody said of dandelions. “Even a weed has some color and texture.”
‘Mom’s going to share’
But if plants and flowers are more to your liking, Woody offered a range of options, from traditional mixed bouquets and plants to trendier succulents and terrariums. He noted that an estimated one-third of American adults will buy cut flowers or plants as a gift for this Mother’s Day.
Terrariums, he said, are “pretty much a self-contained arrangement.” The glass dome creates condensation that then waters the plant, resulting in “a rain forest, tropical feel.”
Children like giving gifts to Mom, too. He suggested a plush teddy bear, or a box of chocolates “because Mom’s going to share.”
For mothers receiving fresh-cut flowers, Woody said, can make them last their longest by recutting the stems at least one inch from the bottom and add preservative (a packet should come with the flowers) to the water. A bouquet from Royer’s is designed to be dropped into a vase without much effort on the part of the recipient.
“It’s pretty much a drop and go,” Woody said.
To view the segment, click on this link.
Royer’s introduces fresh gathered bouquets
Do it yourself doesn’t mean you have to go it alone.
A case in point: Royer’s new fresh gathered bouquets.
Available in 13 different options (with the promise of more to come), the bouquets sell for $19.99 or $29.99 including delivery. They arrive in a brown craft paper sleeve tied with raffia, giving the package a “rustic, farmers market feel,” said Cheryl Brill, Royer’s chief operating officer – retail.
The small ($19.99) version of the Tuscan bouquet, for instance, comprises mini green hydrangea, alstroemeria, daisy poms, viking poms, carnations, mini carnations, caspia, and tree fern. The larger ($29.99) version adds two roses to the mix.
Increasingly, flower buyers like to purchase loose bouquets they can arrange themselves, often using favorite containers, Brill said.
Hands-on
Yet customers can take comfort in knowing that each fresh gathered bouquet is professionally designed with complementary colors and textures (caspia and tree fern, for instance) in mind and then hand-assembled in Royer’s stores.
This removes some of the guesswork for customers while allowing them to be hands-on at home.
Brill said she took one of the bouquets home, trimmed the stems to the appropriate length, and dropped the bouquet into a vase.
“I couldn’t be happier with how that turned out,” she said. “And if customers can do that at home, I would think they’d be very happy with that, too.”
Many customers like to purchase for themselves. Of course, as with any other Royer’s product, the fresh gathered bouquets can be sent to someone as a gift.
While fresh gathered bouquets currently are available only in Royer’s market area, Brill delivered this tidbit: soon customers will have the opportunity to ship them almost anywhere in the United States.
News coverage of Royer’s Flowers gets to the heart of Valentine’s Day preparation
Geoff Royer had been on the go for days, including an annual pre-Valentine’s Day trip to South America to check up on Royer’s rose crop.
But on this day, Geoff’s near-constant movement was confined to Royer’s corporate complex in Lebanon, specifically the central design department where teams of associates gathered around long tables to hand-craft arrangements for the company’s 16 stores in seven counties.
Yet Geoff, vice president of central operations, stopped long enough for a brief interview with Patriot-News/Pennlive photographer Dan Gleiter.
“We’ll do about 27,000 arrangements for the holiday,” Geoff explained, the room bustling behind him. “Fifteen thousand or so of those will be roses. We’ll also do mixed bouquets, rose bunches and loose flowers, as well. We’ll do about 10,000 deliveries on Valentine’s Day itself.”
The interview and a photo gallery can be viewed on Pennlive. Meanwhile, several photos appeared in the Patriot-News print edition on Feb. 12.
Helping the heroes
Meanwhile, PBS39’s Berks County reporter Brittany Sweeney visited Royer’s Reading store for her look at Valentine’s Day. She spoke with Jenni Eberly, Royer’s market manager in Berks County.
“With the vases prepped and the flowers pruned,” Sweeney began her story, “less than a week out, Valentine’s Day hustle is under way.”
“This is our Super Bowl,” Jenni explained. “We get very excited.”
She explained how Geoff and his uncle, CEO Tom Royer, painstakingly review their specific flower crop at farms in South America and then follow the shipment as it makes its way through U.S. customs in Miami and onto tractor-trailers for the ride to Lebanon.
“Because even though we’re dealing with this huge volume, we don’t ever want to sacrifice quality,” Jenni said.
That volume totals a half-million roses and carnations at Valentine’s Day. Each one of those roses is “individually touched and cleaned and the thorns stripped, any of the bad petals peeled off so the roses look perfect for their arrival to the customer’s home.”
Asked what he was purchasing, customer Robert Latshaw said: “Definitely roses because I think that’s what everybody wants. Stick with tradition, right?”
Despite the volume, the flowers pass through Royer’s in short order.
“It comes in and goes out very quickly, and at the end we’re helping a lot of people be heroes to their loved ones,” Jenni said. “It’s great.”
You can view the PBS39 story here.
Royer’s Kids Club springs into new year with free event Jan. 12 in all stores
It’s a paradox of nature that just as winter begins, the amount of daylight slowly starts to increase.
In other words, spring is coming. It makes a special appearance at all Royer’s Flowers & Gifts stores on Jan. 12 for the first Royer’s Kids Club event of 2019.
Children ages 5 to 12 will have an opportunity to make a spring arrangement in a bird’s nest container using daisy pom pons, leatherleaf fern, baby’s breath and spring plaid ribbon.
Time slots are available at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Registration is required by calling the nearest Royer’s store.
The other 2019 kids club events are March 16, June 29, Aug. 17 and Nov. 2.
Royer’s presents more than 4,000 cards and coloring pages to Red Cross’ ‘Holidays for Heroes’
Royer’s Flowers today presented the American Red Cross with more than 4,000 holiday cards and coloring pages for area military veterans.
Royer’s collected the cards and coloring pages at each of its stores from Nov. 11-Dec. 4 as part of its annual participation in the Red Cross’ “Holidays for Heroes” program. The items will be delivered to veterans living in long-term care facilities throughout the region.
Royer’s collecting new children’s books Oct. 28-Nov. 10 to benefit area public libraries
Give a new book, get a fresh bouquet.
That’s the simple proposition behind Royer’s Flowers & Gifts’ annual children’s book drive, which this year runs Oct. 28-Nov. 10.
Bouquets for Books benefits public libraries in Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lancaster, Lebanon and York counties.
For each new book, donors will receive a free bouquet, up to three per family per visit, while supplies last. Used books will not be accepted.
For more information, including library wish lists, visit royers.com/bouquetsforbooks.