In coordination with our farm partners in Ecuador, who have generously discounted the cost of the flowers, we’re offering The Ukraine Kit, a profusion of yellow and blue flowers in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, and sunflowers, a symbol of the Ukrainian people. 

We will be donating 100% of the proceeds of the sale of this kit to Save the Children’s Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. 

You, like me, have seen photos of a Ukrainian mother and father running their 18-month old child into the hospital after the Russian army shelled their village.‍

You, like me, have seen images of mothers and children sheltering in Lviv, as they flee the homes they’ve lived since they were children themselves. 

Maybe you’ve seen the empty strollers Polish moms left on the train platform for Ukrainian mothers and children arriving with only what they could carry. 

Ukraine is under attack by a madman, and its citizens are fighting for their lives as their cities erupt in explosions around them. 

Did you know that the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine?

How do you resist and defeat the angry, evil, pernicious power that would destroy everything in its path? The force that wants more, and more, and more, and is never satisfied?

You defeat it with the creative energy that courses through everything that grows — flowers, children, love.‍

Armies have the power to destroy. I want to tell you about a different kind of power. I guess you could call it flower power. Or the divine feminine. The power of creation. 

Why do we use flowers to adorn our most sacred celebrations? Why do we lay them on graves? Set them on the dinner table for a weary traveler, far from home? 

Because flowers are the physical expression of love. Love. A mother’s love for her child. A President’s love for his country. A chef’s love for his guest. A flower’s love of the sun. 

The sunflower grows where its seed lands: in open fields and in the cracks in the sidewalk, winding up through rubble. It seeks the bright, blue sky. That’s what the world needs more of now (always).

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Cameron Hardesty

CEO & Founder, Poppy

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