Virginia-based doctor Eleanor Love dedicates her life to helping medical patients. And this doesn’t include just treating them from illnesses and injuries. She also tries to bring a smile to their face by giving them flowers.
Love started this heartwarming habit while she was a medical student. She would visit local weddings after they wrapped up and ask whether she could take the flowers that would otherwise be sent to the trash. Contacting wedding coordinators also helped, as most of them were happy to let her use the flowers.
After repurposing the flowers into beautiful bouquets, Love would then take them to the hospital to hand them out to patients who were lonely or didn’t have frequent visits. Her actions would often represent the highlight of the week for many and help them deal with the hospital stay.
“It’s so gratifying to see the patients who receive our bouquets,” she said in a recent interview. “It reminds me why we do what we do.”
In 2019, Love also started The Simple Sunflower organization, aiming to include more people in her project and spread the word. Other people quickly joined in as volunteers, and there are now 200 of them helping the cause. Also, the wedding coordinators and planners, as well as newlyweds, started reaching out to donate the flowers.
Love is now looking to expand the project to other cities and open chapters in medical schools in order to reach more patients.
