The Floral Heart Project, a COVID-19 memorial effort, will lay floral hearts in cities and towns across the United States in conjunction with a National Day of Mourning effort Monday, March 1. In Oklahoma City, floral hearts will be displayed at Scissortail Park and Myriad Botanical Gardens to honor the more than 4,000 Oklahomans who have died from COVID-19.
The Floral Heart Project, which has been featured in the Washington Post, New York Times, Buzzfeed and on NBC has organized a national mobilization of volunteers to recognize mounting COVID-19 losses. Supported at a national level by 1-800-Flowers.com and BloomStudios, the project has partnered local florists, COVID-19 loss families and volunteers to lay hearts in cities and towns throughout the United States.
While the project is nonpartisan, the effort on March 1 is aligned with Marked by COVID’s work to create a National Day of Mourning. To date, more than 50 mayors from around the U.S. have supported the group’s resolution. The Floral Heart Project supports efforts that are actively focused on creating memorials now and permanent memorials in the future.
Oklahoma City’s floral hearts are designed by Heather Cole with Forever
Cole Events and Haleigh Kenney with XO by Haleigh Kenney and will be on display at Scissortail Park and Myriad Botanical Gardens through Friday, March 5.
Dedication on March 1 by Maureen Heffernan, CEO Scissortail Park Foundation and Myriad Gardens Foundation ~
“The Floral Heart Project helps the community create spaces for public grieving and to share support for people suffering during the pandemic. Thanks to Heather Cole and Haleigh Kenny who created the floral hearts that will be set outside at Scissortail Park and Myriad Gardens today.
Flowers are so meaningful for remembering our loved one —- flowers are brilliant, beautiful and uplifting but fade they will over time. As the people in our life who pass on, they are gone but we don’t remember so much the faded period. We remember them as beautiful, vibrant and as ones who brought joy to our lives. We remember them as people we loved and who loved us.
The passing of a loved one is a desperately sad and lonely time in our lives. We know we have to lose people eventually and that is difficult enough. But when they are gone too soon as in this pandemic, it is a double heartache.
This floral heart symbolizes the beauty of life and its brevity. In these settings, at Myriad Gardens and Scissortail Park, with trees, gardens, lakes and singing birds, they are comforting public places to come to grieve and find solace.
So, we remember everyone who passed away from COVID, this terrible virus that has brought a wave of grief across the country as well as economic and emotional struggles of many kinds.
We honor those who passed and we honor all the living who are heroically working in hospitals and nursing homes, and those caring for the sick in their homes. We extend our concern for all those who have lost their jobs or incomes and are struggling.
This period won’t last. There are shoots of optimism springing up just like the thousands of spring daffodils soon to bloom around at Myriad and Scissortail.
But while we are in this period, let’s do what we can, to offer comfort to those who are grieving and suffering.
Thank you again Heather and Haleigh for your caring gestures to help our community.”