Keira Cooney, Reporter
@keiraccourant
Looking for an opportunity to lift the spirits of a friend, teacher, or colleague? Send them a flower arrangement through Bouquet Buddies, a service provided by high school special education students.
After COVID-19 restrictions closed the school store, Speech-Language Pathologists Amy Bowley and Melissa Mahon, along with Special Education Teacher Katey Paige, co-founded a project where their students learn important job-related skills as well as brighten the days of many people around school. Through a google form, students and teachers can nominate a person they believe deserves recognition or support during the season, and Ms. Mahon’s and Ms. Paige’s students will create a bouquet of flowers to lift their spirits.
“We started Bouquet Buddies as a way to bring our students into the community and work on functional tasks and communication,” Ms. Paige said. In past years, her students took advantage of different internships around town, such as at Walter Stewart’s or the library. However, this year they were limited in seeking out these experiences, and Bouquet Buddies was created to try and emulate them best as possible. “The whole idea is to try and teach some vocational skills,” Ms. Paige said.
Orly Berkoff, a speech graduate intern who is working on the project, too, said that the students go through the entire process of creating and delivering the bouquet. “We start with bringing them Trader Joe’s, so that they can select the flowers that they choose, and a lot of that has to do with communication. They have to tell us what color flowers they want,” Orly said. “Then we work on functional skills. For some students, it’s a goal of theirs to be able to grab flowers and put it in the cart and push the cart, so they’re reaching those goals by doing that.”
The students then write out personalized message cards to deliver along with their bouquets. “As a group, we go up with them, and they deliver it, and they have like a little script to say, so they’ll usually say, here you go or thank you so much,” Ms. Paige said.
So far, Bouquet Buddies has delivered flowers to the school nurses, secretaries, and people in the main office. “With the coronavirus, people are feeling a little down,” Ms. Paige said. “We just really wanted to cheer people up around the school and help our students learn and practice different skills at the same time.”
The cofounders ask that people involve themselves with the project by nominating others to receive a bouquet, which you can do here. “Nominate people to brighten their day or even just because. We’re trying to help the school and our students, and this is a simple way to do so” said Ms. Paige. She also said that other students, who may be interested in helping assemble and deliver the flowers, should email either her or Ms. Mahon to discuss partnering with some of their students. “We love having our students get support from other students,” Orly explained. “It’s just nice. They’re working alongside their peers, doing something that anyone else would be doing. It’s giving them the social interaction, too.”
Ms. Paige and Ms. Mahon are also seeking someone to design a slogan or label sticker for their completed bouquet projects, and they ask that you email them directly concerning that, as well.
As the Bouquet Buddies project develops, Ms. Paige and Ms. Mahon said that they are thrilled to watch their students grow and get to experience some sense of normality in education, even with the limitations of the 2020 school year. They hope other students and teachers will understand the importance of the project and involve themselves any way possible. “This really is such a great opportunity for both our students and the school as a whole to get invoved with, considering how limited things are right now,” Ms. Paige said.
