TURLOCK, Calif. — Some Turlock nursing homes might be in for some very special deliveries after a country music star jumpstarted a florist's effort to spread joy this holiday season.
Heidi Hearts Flowers wanted to bring some holiday cheer to the people in skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. To that end, Heidi Sisco, owner and floral designer, created "Poinsettia Grams," a $20 gift meant to lift the spirits of the people in those nursing homes.
Sisco told ABC10 that with so many events cancelled due to COVID-19, she started doing flower grams for elderly folks as a way to keep up with her business. The poinsettia grams followed once the holiday season approached.
"I wanted to keep some things going, and knowing that elderly folks were being kind of confined to their rooms to help with just the spread of the virus, I just, I wanted to like, give and do something," Sisco said.
Sisco said she was expecting maybe 30 orders for poinsettia grams, but on Monday, that effort was supercharged when Kacey Musgraves tweeted screenshots of the florist's project. Musgraves even ordered some herself.
"Y’ALL (sic). for $20 you can anonymously send an elderly person a poinsettia for Christmas. This woman will deliver them for you. I just did some," she tweeted.
"I screamed," Sisco said. "I really am a big fan of Kacey."
Sisco saw Musgraves live in San Francisco last year, and she even walked down the aisle to "Butterfly" by the country music artist on her recent wedding day.
"I just really hold her songs like, near and dear to my heart, so I freaked out when I saw it," Sisco said.
Sisco said she hadn't originally put any sort of cap on orders until Musgraves tweeted about her business. Suddenly, she was flooded with people wanting to help. She said she finally had to set the limit to 500 poinsettia grams, though she says she wishes she could do even more.
"Especially now in California, we're back in a shelter-in-place again, and knowing that again a lot of these residents won't be with family," Sisco said. "A lot of them will be alone, like by themselves, and suffering with Alzheimer's and dementia, for some of them...it's just very confusing. And so, poinsettias just felt like an option that I could offer and deliver."
Sisco and the Heidi Hearts Flower team delivered 270 poinsettias on Wednesday to every single resident at one nursing facility in Turlock and are planning to deliver the remainder to a home in Modesto.
"Everyone was just so giving and so generous and wanting to just spread cheer and joy," Sisco said.
Orders came in from all over, including Canada and Mexico, Sisco said, so even though the plants are going to local elderly folks, it feels like a big, international effort.
Sisco began doing floral arrangement after a friend asked her to do the flowers for her wedding. She said she'd never touch a flower to make a design before then, but she really enjoyed it. Sisco shared that she was soon diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and became very sick for a few months. Flowers were a way to stay positive and designing arrangement acted as a form of therapy, Sisco said.
"I like never thought that this would be anything that I would have be a part of my life, and I honestly believe flowers have brought me so much healing and peace and joy," Sisco said.
Now, not only has she been able to build a business doing something she loves, but she also got a shout out from one of her favorite music artists.
"A HUGE thank you to every single person that pitched in to bring some holiday joy to some of our most vulnerable, and a HUGE thank you to Kacey Musgraves and Dan Levy for spreading the word about this project and expanding the reach of the Poinsettia Grams!" Sisco said on her website.
WATCH ALSO:
