August 29, 1967 - July 3, 2013
Michael often commented on the peace he felt when he was with the roses in the greenhouses in Ecuador. We recently came across an email Michael wrote to flower growers asking them to help with a foundation he set up to help the children in Quito, Ecuador. The date of the email is November 2007. He wasn’t able to get it fully off the ground but his heart was in the right place. Michael writes …
Last Saturday I began a foundation called “Flores Para los Niños de Dios¨ basically this started for me 10 years ago with a book that I felt God put in my heart called ¨The Little Star. ¨ I could hear it perfectly but could not write it perfect and I am still working on it, especially the illustrations. I felt very strongly after I wrote this book that I had a mission to do down here in South America and that was to help the children, especially the little children who don`t have anybody to care about them. I didn’t have any idea how I was going to do this but I felt that God would tell me or show me what to do when I was ready. I didn’t know that it would take 10 years until I was going to be ready.
Many of the people I know in the floral industry are good hearted people and I know many have wanted to help the children and I know there is another foundation called ¨Flowers for Kids¨ but I think the kids that really need to be helped by Ecuadorian flowers are here in Ecuador and not in the United States.
So I started small - I just asked my farm (Jumbo Roses) and two others that I knew well to donate a box of flowers last Friday, … I went around to some of the local churches in my barrio and asked if they had some poor families that needed help. Some were open to this idea the others just wanted me to give them the money which I did NOT feel was the way to help. I found two little boys with families that needed help to help me sell the bouquets the next day. I stayed up until midnight Friday night and was able to make about 40 bouquets.
……. [Michael then describes an extended run in with the police who said he couldn’t sell without a license despite the fact that others were selling in the same area without licenses. There was some drama and Michael ended up being able to sell flowers in an entrance to a mall.]
So after all this hassle and difficulty this really worked out well … [it] took us about 3 hours to sell all the bouquets - 1 dollar for the kids’ families and 1 dollar for the foundation. After paying for all the expenses (shirts, buckets, fanny packs for keeping the money and a couple of taxis ) we ended up with only $20.00 in the end after all that hard work.
There is a saying ¨To climb the Highest Mountain¨ begins with just one step¨ and that’s what I felt this was - a step, a first step. I think that from 3 farms this can grow and grow and grow until we accomplish something really amazing. That we can not just give the money but use it to buy clothes, shoes, to put on a Christmas dinner for the poor, and even to start little businesses for people like get some father a hotdog stand and equipment and half of the money that he makes will go back to the foundation ... I know that if this is what God wants that it will expand from just helping a few to hundreds and even thousands.
Thanks and God Bless
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