Charitable Gift Giving

7/17/21 update:

1-800-Flowers has discontinued Dee’s Bouquet. If you’re looking for an arrangement with a similar vibe, their Floral Embrace or Tropical Sunrise are pretty good choices. But of course proceeds of those don’t go to charity.

If you are interested in a bouquet where proceeds go to a really good cause, check out their Good Day Bouquet. 20% of proceeds goes to Smile Farms. This is a charity that their founder and their CEO, Jim and Chris McCann, started to help give developmentally disadvantaged adults a chance at employment opportunities. I used to work for Jim and Chris and they’re good people. Definitely consider buying this bouquet, or donating directly to this great cause.

11/16/2013 update:

Episodes of the 1-800-Flowers Undercover Boss episode from 2010 are still being broadcast, and it looks like they’ve redesigned Dee’s Bouquet for a third time. In my opinion, this third design is the best. Unlike past versions of Dee’s Bouquet, which something tells me were probably just previous designs that they decided to rename in time to make the TV show, this one was clearly designed from the ground up and really seems to capture Dee’s personality as it looked on the TV show.

7/6/2012 update:

If you recently saw the rebroadcast of Undercover Boss, since the show was originally broadcast they’ve redesigned Dee’s Paradise to become Dee’s Tropical Paradise. It’s a beautiful arrangement with roses, ginger, anthurium, Birds of Paradise, Ti leaf, palm leaf, and myrtle.

For the record, the producers of the show painted Chris’s brother Jim in somewhat of an unpleasant light, probably because they thought it made for better TV. I happen to know Jim, and he is genuinely one of the kindest, funniest, and most brilliant men I know. He’s someone who loves his family tremendously and who treats his employees fairly and with a smile. Long story short, never believe everything you see on TV 🙂

Original Post: 

The season finale of Undercover Boss was yet another great episode in a great series. I actually wonder how much longer this series can go on, because there’s no way the “cover” to explain camera crews (“we’re filming a documentary on entry-level jobs”) will hold up. I guess they’ll just have to film in places that don’t get CBS 🙂

Tonight’s episode featured Chris McCann of 1-800-Flowers, and a floral designer in Boston named Dee, who reminded him of the lesson that success in the florist industry isn’t counted by numbers of flowers you sell, but by how great a relationship you have with your customers.

At the conclusion of the show, Chris reported to Dee that a flower arrangement, Dee’s Paradise
, has been named after her. In addition, a portion of proceeds from sales of this arrangement will go to a scholarship fund for budding (no pun intended) florists and flower designers at the non-profit organization American Institute of Floral Designers. The bouquet is available on 1-800-Flowers now.

It was a heartwarming way to end a great season for a great new show. Congrats to CBS and 1-800-Flowers for a very entertaining evening!