Her secret mission delivers happiness

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Britney Fache went out of her way to secretly leave a florist's discarded flowers in the Kenwood Courts lobby. (TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

This is a story about the power of a flower. A bunch of less-than-perfect flowers, actually. It starts as a tantalizing mystery.

For the last two months, residents of a St. Vital apartment complex have been both baffled and delighted by a secret someone who has been leaving buckets filled with flowers at both entrances.

All free for the picking.

And the sharing.

Who would do that, the tenants at the 103-suite Kenwood Courts wondered. And why?

Then on the day after Mother's Day, a Free Press reader named Rob McInnis emailed me the answer.

"My niece works in a florist operation where, at the end of the day, there are lots of flowers that don't make the cut and become waste," McInnes wrote. "She and her boyfriend recently moved into an apartment building and she decided that the lobby would be a great spot to give those excess flowers a last chance to brighten someone's world."

McInnes explained what that's done for the residents.

"That small gesture has infused the place with a sense of magic and delight as the mystery flowers cheerfully make their way onto tables and windowsills throughout the building. Elderly women make a routine of visiting the lobby to pick up a daily handful of flowers. Young couples -- children and groceries in hand -- will grab a small bunch as they return from shopping. Boyfriends will fashion a small bouquet for their girlfriends. The individual stories are abundant and heartwarming. The flowers have become a communal experience in the building -- fodder for spontaneous conversations, lively anecdotes and a sense of community-building. While a few people have learned her identity, conjectures about the identity of the mystery flower-donor still abound."

Not anymore.

Her name is Britney Fache.

Monday morning, I called the soon-to-be-24-year-old at Petals West, a local flower distribution company where she's been working part-time for the busy Easter and Mother's Day season. Britney explained how, with the company owner's permission, she gathered the discarded flowers. Then, after a 13-hour shift cutting and cleaning, she would go home and cut and clean even more gerbera daisies, carnations and alstroemeria, placing them in water for delivery to the Kenwood's lobby next morning.

A morning that started at 5:30.

"That's what helped me stay anonymous," Britney said.

The woman who manages the Kenwood for Rancho Realty, who wanted to be known only as Noreen, was especially struck by how the many single seniors who live in the complex were touched by the mysterious flower person's gesture.

"I don't know who it is," one woman told Noreen, "but tell that person I love her."

At that point, nobody knew that Noreen already knew who the person was. Two weeks ago, she had encountered Britney's fiancé, Phil Jacobson, in the lobby.

"Make sure you take a flower for your girlfriend," Noreen told him.

Which prompted Phil to tell the property manager why it wouldn't make sense to take a flower to his girlfriend.

"She's the one who's bringing them," he told her.

Phil asked Noreen to keep Britney's identity secret. And she did.

Then, last weekend, one of the tenants chanced to meet Britney as she was leaving later than usual.

"You should take some flowers," the elderly woman told Britney. "They go like hotcakes around here."

Britney said she couldn't.

The woman insisted.

Finally, Britney told her why she couldn't.

"And she burst into tears," Britney recalled, "and gave me a big hug."

Now the big floral holidays are over and Britney will only be working one day a week at Petals West. She's going back to her own business, Fache Forward Designs, doing floral arrangements for events and weddings, which she promotes through Facebook.

I asked Britney what she learned from giving free flowers by the bucketload to her neighbours.

"I learned it doesn't take a lot of time to give back, to make someone's day. It doesn't take a lot to give a lot."

I think she may learned something else. That garbage, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 10, 2011 B1