Penny for your Thoughts

November is Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness month. This devastating disease has touched the lives of the owner and his family here at Stein Your Florist Co., as well as, many of our staff. Through sharing our story and our fund raising efforts we have also learned that it has affected the lives of many of our beloved customers and friends in the community as well.



Purple is the color for Alzheimer's Disease Awareness. Our model is draped in
purple blooms and an awareness ribbon on our hand laid penny
floor benefiting Alzheimer's Disease Research.

Alzheimer’s is a disease that attacks the brain; it is the most common form of dementia. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 5.4 million Americans are living with the disease and every 69 seconds someone in the US develops it. It is the 6th leading cause of death in the US and of the top 10 diseases that kill, Alzheimer’s is the only one that is not preventable or curable. 

Eager to do our part in the fight against Alzheimer’s we held a fundraiser at our Philadelphia location benefiting Alzheimer’s Disease Research (ADR), a program of the American Health Assistance Foundation (AHAF). Since 1986, ADR has funded more than $74 million to support Alzheimer’s research and has made significant progress in the understanding and treatment of this puzzling disease. They are confident that with the help and support of others that they can eventually defeat this cruel and dreadful disease.

 

One of our online campaigns to raise the awareness of Alzheimer's disease.
We also painted awareness ribbons on our shop windows to show our support.

In addition to our fundraising event we held a penny drive benefiting ADR as well. We collected pennies from the community and began installing a penny floor at our Burlington, NJ location, Steins at Sunset Florist. Our staff and customers donated their pennies, which we glued to the floor, and the funds were donated to ADR. Additionally members of our staff and students from the neighborhood donated their time to help us record the date and mint of each penny to gather “fun facts” about our project. We made monetary contributions for every hour they spent working on our penny floor. The “Penny for your Thoughts” instillation benefiting Alzheimer’s Disease Research was the talk of the town, few people have ever seen that many pennies glued to a floor before!



Our floor benefiting Alzheimer's Disease Research included a medallion hand
laid in pennies as a centerpiece of the room.

Unfortunately, on December 2, 2014 a car crashed into Steins at Sunset Florist, causing massive damage to the store, including tearing up pennies and spilling the car’s fluids over the floor. We are saddened that we will be losing our penny floor in the reconstruction, but are grateful that no one, sans the driver, who will recover, was hurt and that we remain open for business. We are brainstorming ways to pay tribute to our former penny floor in a new benefit for Alzheimer’s disease research.

Fundraiser for Alzheimer's Disease Research at Stein Your Florist Co. in Philadelphia, PA

If we all work together we can raise awareness about this devastating disease and one day find a cure.

For more information about Alzheimer’s Disease Research, please visit http://www.ahaf.org/.