(Courtesy of Israel Blooms) Two American Olim—Carla Sprung, formerly of New Jersey, and Karen Levine of California—recently launched Israel Blooms, a non-profit flower donation service dedicated to bringing smiles to Israel’s needy through flowers donated after events.

The long-time friends based in Modi’in had attended many events and smachot and noticed that the beautiful floral arrangements and centerpieces were often discarded once the occasion was over. They decided to create a service that would enable people to donate their flowers and have them repurposed and delivered to bring a little joy to those in need.

Event hosts and party planners reach out before the event to let Israel Blooms know they are interested in this service and coordinate the timing for the flower collection. At the end of an event or simcha, Israel Blooms collects the event’s floral arrangements, breaks them down and then lovingly redesigns and repurposes them into smaller arrangements in vases. The flowers are then hand delivered to places such as hospitals, nursing homes, day centers for the elderly or Holocoust survivors, women’s shelters or to brides who otherwise could not afford flowers at their wedding.

Hosts are able to incorporate this service as part of the chesed aspect of their event by Israel Blooms providing table cards indicating that the flowers will be donated, or by having the bar/bat mitzvah family participate in the delivery of the flowers.

More information on Israel Blooms can be accessed at https://www.instagram.com/israelblooms or Israel Blooms on Facebook.