Miley Cyrus can buy herself flowers, but Portlanders can get them for free on Wednesday, Oct. 16, thanks to the national flower wholesaler Mayesh. The company's Portland branch (no pun intended) joins the Pacific Northwest Florist Association and hundreds of other florists in the Society of American Florists' annual Petal It Forward event, which will see thousands of flowers donated as pairs of bouquets: one to take home, and one to pass on to another stranger. Or, if you've said anyone "deserves their flowers" in the past year, now's your chance to give them.
Mayesh is best known to visitors of the Portland Flower Market on Swan Island, where it has sold fresh-cut flowers of every color and size for over a decade. The Portland Flower Market will also pass out fresh bouquets, should anyone want a surer chance of brightening up their spaces and a stranger's day. Roxie Amoroso, a PIF organizer, says teams will also be out at the South Waterfront, the south end of Powell's City of Books, Grant High School, Beverly Cleary Elementary School, the Adidas headquarters campus, and Portland International Airport.
"[It] was no easy feat, giving strangers anything," Amoroso tells WW via email. "Even just flowers."
Read more at Willamette Week.