The Day of Love swept through Cary Academy with many celebrations and events, notably the Upper School Carnation Sale, hosted by Student Council. The event began with the sale of tags for the flowers in the last week of January. Tags were just one dollar a piece, but with teachers, students, and faculty purchasing flowers for friends, colleagues, pupils, or a special someone, the money started racking up. StuCo ended up selling just over 1,000 flowers, an astounding number compared to the 489 students at Cary Academy.
After students bought tags and wrote personalized notes to the recipients, StuCo members like Callie Chang (’25), the Junior Class President, spent over 2 hours on the Wellness Day on Valentine’s Day attaching the heart-shaped paper notes to the actual flowers with pink ribbon, an appropriate color-theme! “We had a little assembly line going, so it wasn’t too bad,” laughed Chang. Then, flowers were grouped into the recipient’s Thursday B-Block class for the teacher to distribute on February 15th.
The search for the perfect flowers to buy was challenging, said Rebecca Liu (’25), the Executive Student Council Secretary. “We actually had a big panic because Sam’s Club was sold out of flowers right when we were about to order, but thankfully there were still white carnations!”
After the cost of hundreds of carnations, the fundraiser drummed up about $300, which was donated to the local nonprofit Hands for Hearts. Based in the Triad, the organization supports children with congenital heart defects (CHD) and sponsors initiatives like running a camp for local kids with CHD in partnership with Duke Children’s Hospital and Camp Victory Junction. “We chose Hands for Hearts because we were thinking about hearts for Valentine’s Day and we also wanted to support a local organization,” explained Liu.
Receiving flowers from special people in the CA community touched students. The CA varsity girls soccer team felt the positive impacts of the sale: Darcy Keegan (’25) said “I liked reading the little messages.” “It was really warm and touching to see everyone really loved and appreciated,” Avery Foster (’25) added. Another junior said she “felt very appreciated” by the flowers. Most importantly, the Charger community felt loved.