Jul 27, 2021
Every year, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. team members across the country participate in the company’s Summer of a Million Smiles employee volunteer program, donating their time to help others in their local communities.
Since 2012, from May through August, employees have worked together to give back to causes about which they are passionate. This has included volunteering at food pantries and animal shelters, teaching children with autism how to surf, cleaning up beaches, participating in wheelchair basketball games, and more.
This summer, the program has gone virtual, with team members nationwide rallying around one objective: to brighten someone’s day. The company is supporting Brighten A Day Foundation, a nonprofit that lifts the spirits of those in need of cheer by sending them love, hope, and joy through cards, letters, and video messages.
Team members from Oregon to New York – and everywhere in between – have joined in this volunteer effort by sending digital notes, videos, and hand-written cards and letters to deliver smiles to retirement home residents and others who could use some happiness in their day.
Rising high school senior Hita Gupta, 16, started writing letters to cheer up lonely senior citizens when she was in middle school, later founding Brighten A Day when she started high school. Since then, Brighten A Day has reached tens of thousands of seniors, hospitalized patients, and frontline workers, in all 50 states and across the world, through a network of thousands of volunteers.
When she learned that team members would be supporting Brighten A Day this summer, Gupta said, “We are so grateful that you are becoming a part of this community through volunteering. It’s incredibly rewarding to know that you will be the reason someone smiles after reading your cards or viewing your video messages.”
Click here to learn more about how 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. gives back to the communities it serves.