My name is Alex Munden and I am a UNC undergrad student, and I a volunteer at the ARC of Orange County. The program that I mainly work with is Petals with a Purpose. Petals, or PWAP is a weekly meeting of ARC participants on Wednesdays in which we work together to create beautiful flower arrangements. Each week, the grocery store Whole Foods in Chapel Hill donates several buckets of flowers from their floral department for our program to use. We collect bottles, cans and other recyclables to contain the flowers. We decorate these vases with natural elements such as cut twigs, twine and dried flowers. We then put the donated fresh flowers into the vases and attach tags with the purpose of our project. After the vases are complete, Steve and Tyler, some of the other ARC volunteers take the vases to the local food pantry and once a month to the senior center. The project is useful for the ARC participants because it enables them to use their fine motor skills as well as creativity. Petals with a Purpose is also an environmentally friendly initiative because virtually all of the products used in the making of the vases are recycled. The best part of Petals is that the members of the ARC can give back to the community and contribute to the greater good!
Annie and Brandon starting the day with large buckets of flowers donated by Whole Foods!
Setting up to make the "twig vases" from recycled cans and twigs
One of the APPLES volunteers, Christina, helping Melissa by putting cut flowers into a twine-wrapped bottle. Christina is encouraging her to use her fine motor skills and work on dexterity!
Some of the completed twig vases
The finished products are so beautiful!
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