Hi everyone, I wanted to quickly introduce myself. My name is Jasen, and I am the Marketing Manager over here at KB farms, many of you are seeing my email address on our weekly price sheet emails. I have been working on the Farm since the beginning of January 2020, trying to better communicate with our customers about all the fantastic products we have to offer the floral world. I wanted to take this week's blog post as an opportunity to share an anecdote about why Mother's Day is now, more important to me, than ever because of the effects of shelter in place orders. I am pretty sure I am not alone in this experience. Many moms are struggling with not being able to see their kids and grandkids, and that will be particularly difficult on a Mother's Day practicing physical distancing. Social and physical distancing means we cannot celebrate in the traditional ways (our celebration often involves painting a room in the house to her liking).
Because of social distancing, physical distancing, and shelter-in-place, many of us haven't been able to see our moms let alone hug them to remind them how much we love and appreciate them. My brother and I live close enough to my parents to join them for a Sunday Family dinner just about every Sunday. Because of the shelter in place orders, the last in-person Sunday dinner we were able to have was over a month ago for St. Patrick's day on the 15th of March (we had corn beef and cabbage and beef shepherd's pie if anyone was wondering). For our family that is a long time to go without meeting up to share a meal and talk about the things going on in our lives, I'm sure many of you have similar stories. Our moms already deserve more love than they get, and that is more true now than ever before, join us in celebrating Mother's Day all May.
Before the shelter in place orders, I would bring flowers home from the Farm for my mom just about every week. Since I've been working from home, the weekly flower delivery for mom have dried up, and we have had to settle for FaceTime chats, phone calls, and bouquets from the grocery store to stay in touch.
Even before social distancing, it was important to me to remind my mom when I am thinking of her. One of my favorite ways to do this was sharing and learning about new flowers, arranging them, and taking photographs with her (many of the photos of arranged flowers on the KB Instagram are a collaboration with my mom). Now, this sentiment is even more important than ever. We need to check in with our moms and make sure that they know they aren't alone, even if they might feel like it, being stuck at home isolated from a world that is a little more than scary right now. All of this is why we are encouraging our customers to call their local florists and send flowers to loved ones or grab some flowers while on essentials runs. We want everyone to stay safe, but we also want people to spread love in a time where that is exceedingly challenging.
I may be a little biased, but I think flowers are still the perfect way to show our moms that we love them while still keeping them safe. Many local florists are offering contactless delivery and are working to ramp up for the holiday the best that they can. We know that for all of our customers, it is difficult to forecast what the flower demands will be since many of them are just now able to start working again.
Lots has changed in the world over the last two months; these changes have forced all of us to adapt in one way or another. Here at the Farm, we have made quite a few changes to serve our customers better and get more flowers into the world. Below are just a few changes we have made to serve our customers better and get them the product in the quantities that they need.
We hope that you all have a very safe and successful Mother's Day; it should be a big step towards finding a new normal for the floral industry.
Love you Mom!
Jasen Henderson
Marketing Manager