Volunteers deliver bouquets to nursing home residents

BY DANIEL GAITAN | daniel@lifemattersmedia.org

Kerry Andersen doesn’t want anyone to spend their days alone, or without fresh flowers.

This spring, Andersen launched “New Friends” outreach to brighten the lives of seniors who may go weeks without visits from family or friends. After years as a hospice volunteer, Andersen is now working to forge friendships among new volunteers, hospice patients and nursing home residents across southeastern Wisconsin.

Andersen and her team create flower bouquets and deliver them to surprised seniors multiple times each month. Andersen hopes her volunteers “hit it off” with the people they visit and form real friendships.

“I was trying to get people into nursing homes to visit, and I knew it would be a challenge,” Andersen said. “It’s not about flowers, but it helps make volunteers more comfortable going into nursing homes.”

The source of the flowers comes from an unlikely source: funeral homes.

“Funeral homes are unbelievably excited about this, because they see the flowers go to waste,” said Andersen, a Kenosha-based graphic designer. “Funeral homes work with families on their end of the spectrum and suggest they donate flowers to us.”

Andersen doesn’t know when she will receive a flower donation, so volunteers are always on call. It can take three hours or more to break down funeral arrangements and turn them into gifts.

Today, remembering my own fears helps me understand why it is difficult for others to visit people living in these facilities.

Andersen must work quickly. “The flowers have been around for a few days, because they have served their purpose at the funeral,” she said. “If I got a call today, I would go pick up the flowers on my lunch hour and bring them home. My neighbor is a volunteer and has a key to my house, so she lets herself in and starts working. We have a rhythm.”

Positive Response

Some of the first “flower visits” took place in late March at Azura Memory Care Kenosha South, an assisted living facility for dementia patients.

Some residents were hesitant to accept bouquets at first; others thought she was an employee.

“Some would say, ‘Oh, I can’t accept this’ or ‘these must be for somebody else,'” Andersen said. “But I told them, ‘No, these are for you, these are yours.’ Then they accepted, and we started talking.”

Visits to patients suffering from dementia can be difficult at times, Andersen said, but the encounters are rewarding. Most just want someone to talk with, even if only for a few moments.

“They would remember me, they didn’t remember my name even though I would go there every week, but they knew I was somebody to them,” she said. “They would ask who I was there to see, and when I said I was there to see them, they would just brighten up. They often would just converse with paid staff.”

Inspired By Mother’s Death

Andersen was uncomfortable with hospices and nursing homes growing up.

It wasn’t until her mother, a cancer patient, requested hospice support a few years ago that Andersen began forging connections with other volunteers and patients. Two years ago, she became a volunteer at Hospice Alliance in Pleasant Prairie.

“Going through it with my mom, I realized that death is part of life,” Andersen added. “People that are dying are just people.”