Scent With Love recycles the joy by picking up, resharing flowers.
If you’ve ever wondered what happens to all those beautiful flowers used as decorations for weddings or other big events, there’s an unfortunate but clear answer: They generally get thrown away.
That kind of waste never sat well with Shannon Haldeman, a 28-year-old from Murrysville who recently relocated to San Diego. In 2018, she went to the wedding of a couple who lived in Hawaii and realized they were going to leave behind an abundance of bouquets after they flew back home. She asked if she could give their leftover flowers to her co-workers, and, upon seeing their delighted reactions, an idea began to form.
Later that year, she officially started Scent With Love, a volunteer network that picks up flowers that would have just been trashed otherwise and delivers them to Pittsburghers who could really use the small joy of a fresh bouquet.
“Flowers for a wedding are extremely expensive,” she said. “To be thrown away to me is mind-blowing. ... They can continue to brighten up a room over days to come as opposed to getting thrown away. It’s a reminder of sunshine and of where you got them.”
Although she no longer lives in Pittsburgh, her yinzer credentials are strong. After studying biology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, she got a job as a University of Pittsburgh trauma researcher. She earned her master’s in public health from Pitt last year before moving to San Diego, where she now has a fulltime gig doing cancer research laboratory operations while she continues to run Scent With Love remotely.
She never was particularly crazy about flowers before Scent With Love, but she could never stand letting anything that had the potential to be reused go to waste: “Food, flowers, anything.” Now, she has amassed a dedicated group of 15 to 20 regular volunteers and about 50 in total who pick up excess flowers from weddings all over the city and take them to places such as nursing homes, addiction recovery centers and women’s shelters.
“People are just stunned,” she said. “It’s so rewarding but sad that people are in such a dark time in their lives and something as little as a bouquet of flowers can really turn their day around. Just to know that we’re thinking of them really gives hope and puts a smile on their face, even if it’s for a few hours.”
Scent With Love recently expanded from just getting extra flowers from weddings to Trader Joe’s reaching out to Ms. Haldeman and setting up flower pickups four days a week. Volunteers have delivered to Pittsburgh organizations such as The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh & Lemieux Family Center, Ronald McDonald House and Community Kitchen Pittsburgh and have even left flowers on soldiers’ graves at local cemeteries on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
It has also partnered with Meals on Wheels — “People love a hot dish with a fresh bouquet of flowers,” as Ms. Haldeman put it — and 412Thrive, a nonprofit that supports those who have been impacted by breast cancer, to spread more flowery cheer across Pittsburgh. Then there are the pop-up deliveries Scent With Love has done around the city in locales such as the Mount Washington overlooks, Highland Park and even outside Pitt’s graduation ceremony.
Earlier in July, Scent With Love volunteer Amy Magoun, 50, of Shaler, gave the flowers she received from Trader Joe’s to seniors picking up their to-go meals at the Squirrel Hill Jewish Community Center.
Ms. Magoun, a Pitt research coordinator, has been a part of Scent With Love since 2018 and has delivered flowers everywhere from a ManorCare nursing home Ross to Family House in Oakland to the Shaler School District as a token of appreciation for teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I really like the idea that we’re not wasting flowers,” she said. “They throw them away at the end of weddings. I like the idea of giving them to people who might not otherwise have flowers as a surprise. People just seem really happy with the donation.”
Ellen Gaus, 28, of Spring Hill, reached out to Ms. Haldeman during summer 2019 to get involved With Scent with Love. She’s been a “serial volunteer” ever since and has been involved in somespecial deliveries, such as the flowers she gave to UPMC Hillman Cancer Center at the specific request of a bride to honor her late father as “a way for him to be a part of their day still.”
Both Ms. Magoun and Ms. Gaus mentioned that they only drop off the flowers at a designated location and thus rarely get to see the reactions of the folks receiving them. Those deliveries became even more complicated by the pandemic when they couldn’t even get in the front of doors of nursing homes. But they constantly get messages from the workers coordinating the deliveries about how much the recipients enjoyed their bouquets.
“I would imagine that it’s a nice surprise,” Ms. Gaus said. “You enjoy seeing that beautiful thing and connect itand say, ‘Someone brought this to me. That makes me feel seen and valid and like a wanted part of this community.’ I would hope that’s what’s happening.”
Ms. Haldeman is “forever grateful” to her loyal volunteers and is heartened by all the other organizations and nonprofits she has come across through Scent With Love that are there to make Pittsburghers’ lives better.
“I think by having this organization, I’ve really seen more of a community in Pittsburgh than I ever had before,” she said. “Everyone kind of wants to spread that sunshine and happiness around the city. It’s been fun to see Scent With Love blooming around Pittsburgh.”