Photograph by Jeff Kearns
ManorCare resident Viola Cooper gets a Mother's Day rose from Sunnyvale Rotarian Yolanda Brown on May 11.
Rotarians deliver roses to local senior mothers
Ladies in retirement homes get the Mother's Day gift
By William Jeske
Carmen Hubbard doesn't go a day without flowers nearby.
The halls of her nursing home are decorated with intricate floral wallpaper. She received 75 roses in February for her 75th birthday. And on May 11 she got one more for being a mother.
"It's very nice, very thoughtful," Hubbard said from her bed at ManorCare when a member of the Sunnyvale Rotary Club handed her a dethorned red rose with baby's breath.
Hubbard is a lifelong Sunnyvale resident who speaks fluent Spanish; her parents, who met in San Francisco, were from Spain. Hubbard has one 46-year-old son who lives in Philadelphia.
Earlier that morning about a dozen Rotarians had gathered at Crosswalk Community Church to dethorn about 26 dozen roses before dispersing to hand them out to the women residents at the city's nursing homes.
Rotarians Mike Klein and Connie Portely joined Yolanda Brown as they made their way from room to room and greeted women in wheelchairs in the aisles.
This is the second year that the Rotarians have taken up delivering roses for Mother's Day. For Klein, this year was even better than last.
"Last year, all we did was just bring the roses to the nursing homes and the staff would deliver them later," Klein said. "This time we got to hand them out."
It's usually on holidays that service organizations come to visit nursing homes, ManorCare in particular, said Jaleh Behzadi, the home's activities director.
"Christmas is the most popular holiday for [service organizations] to come and do something special for the residents," Behzadi said.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
