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.
Irish eyes were smiling at St. Patrick’s Day kids club event
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It was the top o’ the morning and the afternoon at the March 14 Royer’s Kids Club event.
Children ages 5 to 12 had an opportunity, at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m., to make a special mum character in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Thanks to everyone who joined us for what is one of our most popular yearly events.
This year’s remaining kids club events are scheduled for June 27, Aug. 15 and Nov. 7.
The best way to stay on top of kids club happenings is to become a kids club member. It’s free and includes a membership card and welcome kit; online activity pages; and our quarterly email newsletter, Buds.
Royer’s Kids Club celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with free event March 14 in all stores
Mum’s the word at the March 14 Royer’s Kids Club event. Molly O’Mum, that is.
Children ages 5 to 12 will have an opportunity to make their own St. Patrick’s Day mum character, complete with smiling face, shamrock ribbon and green top hat.
Slots are available at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Registration is required by calling your the nearest Royer’s store.
The other remaining 2020 kids club events are June 27, Aug. 15 and Nov. 7.
10 Heart-Felt Uses for Flowers This Valentine’s Day
In 2019, according to aboutflowers.com, 28 percent of American adults (37 percent men, 19 percent women) purchased flowers for Valentine’s Day. Roses led the way, accounting for 84 percent of those purchases.
If you favor tradition, we have you covered with lots of rose options available for delivery or in-store pickup. But if you’re looking for a new twist, we can help with that, too.
Here are 10 unique ways to incorporate flowers into Valentine’s Day:
1. Try different colors: Red roses are No. 1 in popularity, but other colors such as yellow and pink and mixed colors are terrific options, too.
2. Experiment with other flowers: Consider carnations, tulips, orchids, lilies, which will give you even more color and cost options.
3. Send to your kids: Everyone loves getting flowers, and certainly your children will be excited when the flower delivery is for them. Our Sweet Hugs Bud Vase features two roses, Hershey’s Kisses and a six-inch white plush bear.
4. Go on a flower-shopping date: Unsure which flowers to give your significant other? Turn it into a positive by making a date out of stopping at your local Royer’s before dinner or a movie. Our staff is eager to help.
5. Thank a friend: How about a loving gesture of flowers for that loyal friend; you know, the one who stood by you through all of the ups and downs in your love life?
6. Reward great service: Every day, our lives are positively affected by others, from mail carriers to plumbers, waitstaff to dry cleaners. A single stem will let them know that you value the hard work they perform.
7. Make a candy heart rose bouquet: Place a clear glass vase containing roses inside a larger glass vase and fill the gap with candy conversation hearts.
8. Include a heart-felt note: Add oomph to your flowers when you craft a loving message to your significant other. You can bring it with you when you come to any of our stores. We’ll gladly include it with your delivery.
9. Give a gift to your hosts: Are you attending any parties around the holiday? If so, a bouquet of flowers is a thoughtful way to thank your hosts.
10. Commit a random act of flowers: Hand a dozen roses to someone with instructions for them to keep one flower and pass the rest of the bouquet to someone else, and on and on until you’ve touched 12 lives in a positive, loving way.
Maybe one or more of these suggestions will catch your fancy, or perhaps it will inspire you to come up with your own creative way to use flowers this Valentine’s Day.
The bottom line is that flowers are a time-honored way to show your love. And remember that options abound and our staff is always here to assist you.
In January, it’s a tip-top time to tip-toe through the tulips
Tulips arrived in Western Europe in the late 1500s from their native Turkey, looking unlike anything else on the continent.
As an import, they “commanded the same exoticism that spices and Oriental rugs did,” according to Investopedia.com.
And by the first part of the 1600s, the rarest bulbs traded for as much as six times the average annual salary. This phenomenon came to be known as “tulip mania.”
The allure of tulips remains strong centuries later. Royer’s celebrates tulips every year at this time. Our annual tulip promotion runs through Jan. 31 with a combination of specials and everyday value.
10 stems for $8.99
For $8.99, you can pick up a 10-stem “grower’s bunch” that’s regularly priced at $14.99. Two bunches are $16.99.
Handful bouquets with free local delivery
The tulip promotion also includes free delivery on our hand-tied handful bouquets, available with 15 tulips ($25) or 25 tulips ($39.99) and accents of limonium.
$59.99 shipped anywhere in continental U.S.
There are places called Tulip in seven states, but you can send 15 boxed tulips anywhere in the continental United States for $59.99 as part of our direct-ship program.
New Vintage Tulips collection
Our new Vintage Tulips arrangements are available in four sizes and come with three (pink or purple vase), 10, 20 or 40 mixed color tulips (colors will vary). New this year, each arrangement features accents of dusty miller and wax flower for a more vintage/Victorian feel compared with the country look of previous years.
Emily Mallis, Royer’s marketing manager, noted that dusty miller “is soft and slightly fuzzy and is a lighter green with some silver tones or maybe a white dusting.” Wax flower, she said, “has a beautiful fragrance when cut or touched.”
The Vintage Tulips line ranges from $16.99 to $89.99 and can be picked up at any of our 16 area stores or delivered within our market area.
As a hardy, affordable symbol of perfect love, tulips also are a popular option for Valentine’s Day.
Perhaps you’ve heard the entertainer Tiny Tim, singing in a falsetto and strumming a ukulele, performing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”
The lyrics include:
“Knee deep in flowers we’ll stray
We’ll keep the showers away
And if I kiss you in the garden
In the moonlight, will you pardon me?
And tip-toe through the tulips with me”
Design your own bouquet at Jan. 11 Royer’s Kids Club event
A new year, a new Royer’s Kids Club event.
On Jan. 11, children ages 5 to 12 will have an opportunity to choose from a selection of flowers to create their own bouquets.
Time slots are available at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. at all Royer’s stores. Registration is required by calling or visiting your nearest store.
This year’s other kids club events are March 14, June 27, Aug. 15 and Nov. 7.
Thank you for donating more than 1,000 holiday cards and coloring pages for veterans
In this season of giving, you sure did.
Our annual “Holidays for Heroes” event, which ran throughout November, collected more than 1,000 holiday cards and coloring pages for veterans.
We presented these cards and coloring pages to the American Red Cross, which this year is distributing holiday cards to more than 700 veterans in 30 locations in its Greater Pennsylvania Region.
One of those locations is Frey Village, a continuing care retirement community in Middletown, where the Red Cross and Royer’s hosted a holiday party for 18 veterans on Dec. 16.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to Holidays for Heroes and helped us celebrate our brave, selfless veterans.
We can’t promise eternity, but here’s how to make your evergreen wreath last longer
We see them on doors and fences, windows and walls.
Some are even attached to the fronts of cars and trucks.
The evergreen Christmas wreath is a ubiquitous holiday adornment. So much so, perhaps, that it’s easy to overlook the wreath’s rich symbolism.
“The evergreen wreath — its circular shape an emblem not only of perfection and unity but also of the warm, enduring sun — later became a Christian symbol for Christ’s suffering and ultimate triumph over death,” according to a 1988 New York Times article. “It is believed that the holly wreath, with its sharp, pointed leaves, first represented the crown of thorns worn by Christ on the cross, the little red berries symbolizing drops of blood. Later wreaths were formed from a variety of pines and firs, with evergreens embodying eternal life.”
The tradition of bringing evergreen trees into homes dates to the 16th century, according to a Time magazine article, crediting Germans specifically. Pruning trees to make them fit or more shapely left “pieces of greenery” that lent themselves to wreath-making.
“These people were living in a time when everything in their lives was used until it was gone,” said Ace Collins, author of “Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas.”
Wreaths had other associations prior to Christmas, however: as “a prominent emblem of victory and power in ancient Greece and Rome.” Victorious athletes were crowned with wreaths of many sorts, including olives, laurel, wild celery and pine. Wreaths also were worn by priests, by brides and by guests at a feast.
‘Representation of eternal life’
In the context of Christmas, wreaths originally served as tree ornaments.
“They were formed into a wheel-like shape partially for convenience’s sake — it was simple to hang a circle onto the branches of a tree — but the shape was also significant as a representation of divine perfection,” Time wrote.
Similarly, evergreen trees were revered for their ability to survive winter.
“Together,” Time noted, “the circular shape and the evergreen material make the wreath a representation of eternal life.”
While you can’t make an evergreen wreath last forever, you can get the most out of one by following these simple tips:
–Fresh wreaths will get dry over time, but spray-on products such as Wilt Pruf seal moisture in (it works on garland and Christmas trees, too). Be sure to do this away from your door and before hanging the wreath to avoid making a mess.
–Wreaths can cook if placed between a door and a glass storm door, so hang them on an outside door exposed to the elements.
–Keep wreaths out of direct sunlight if possible, such as on a door under a porch roof.