Unlike other countries that celebrate Nurses' Day on the 12th May (the birthday of Florence Nightingale), Singapore celebrates Nurses' Day on the 1st August.
Back in the 80s, Singapore was still suffering from poor healthcare and there was a lack of nurses. The first of August marked the beginning of the development of nursing in Singapore.
The Wallflower Bud decided to give back on Nurses' Day by giving out 200 mini bouquets to nurses in Singapore.
Continuously working over 4 days left us with 2 pairs of sore hands, but we had a final count of 228 mini bouquets. (You might have seen the crazy mess on our Instagram.) We are also very grateful to @agapescripts.co for agreeing to help us so readily, by designing and producing these cards for the bouquets.
Why Nurses' Day?
Many people have asked us this question.
Way way back when we were merely just starting to think about starting this business, we agreed that we wanted to give back. Helping people, teaching people, whatever. We wanted to give whatever we could to make people happy - just like how many people have brought smiles to our faces. We saw nurses as a very special group of people. Full of compassion, they are the people who never stop caring.
We've seen nurses care for ourselves and our family members. We can only imagine how tough their jobs must be and the challenges they face daily. Overworked yet underappreciated, we felt like they deserved recognition for their efforts on this special day.
First Stop: 31st July, 8pm, Singapore General Hospital
Crashed the pantry of the Emergency Department to give out our first batch of flowers. Thank you to those who helped distribute the other flowers and we really hope we'll be back next year! (We had to rush back to start on the next batch of bouquets..)
It took us more than a day to complete the first 100 bouquets. Can you imagine the thought of completing a new batch of another 100 in less than a day? WE couldn't. But somehow, with lots of determination, we delivered 128 bouquets the next day.
Second Stop: 1st August, 1pm, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.
The flowers and fillers used for our bouquets are packed with water (so they will continue to bloom). Also, they can be kept and dried!
This time, we crashed the Nurses' Day celebrations at the hospital, heh.
It was truly a tiring yet fulfilling experience for the team. It was definitely hard work, but we're glad we challenged ourselves and managed to get some rest afterwards.
There were times we thought to ourselves, "200 is too much for us to cope, how about we make lesser bouquets?" We knew we'd be pushing our limits to complete this (after all, one of us was also tied down to an intern at that time, which meant long office hours and one less pair of hands), but when we thought about how many nurses there are in a hospital, 100 seemed like a pretty small number. Quick fact: when we delivered 100 bouquets to SGH's Emergency Department, it was barely enough for ONE department. What about the rest?
Regardless, we hope that through our small gesture, we're able to put a smile on the nurses' faces, and let them know that we appreciate them. Hopefully, we'll be able to do this again next year.
Happy Nurses' Day, Nightingales.
(Sorry this post came a little late, we've been busy.)
Keep buddin',
The Wallflower Bud Team