Meet Eileen Taylor of Raleigh

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eileen Taylor

Hi Eileen, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
The Flower Shuttle was started by Kathy Reece in 2006 as a way to recycle flowers that would otherwise be thrown away. I began volunteering with the group in 2017 when I moved from North Raleigh to central Raleigh to a house just a few blocks from where Flower Shuttle met. I became president in 2019, and have been in that role ever since. I love that so many volunteers are willing to give of their time to make others happy. And I can tell that the volunteers themselves benefit from being part of a welcoming and fun group.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, we needed to rethink how we could continue to safely pick up flowers from our donors and deliver them to our recipients, who were in need of good cheer more than ever. We pivoted to create small groups that met in garages and backyards and the change resulted in our ability to serve even more recipients across more days of the week. When the pandemic abated, we kept some teams, and also returned to working in a large open group. This challenge actually enabled more volunteers to participate and we grew our organization over that time.
We also changed locations from the Moravian Church to the Ridge, about 2 blocks away. The new space is larger and has more parking, which we needed as we grew.

Another challenge is managing pickups and deliveries. We’ve started using an online sign up tool to make sure we have volunteers to pick up flowers every week, and we have a sign up board on Tuesdays to make sure all deliveries are covered.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My full time position is Professor of Accounting at NCSU, in the Poole College of Management. I’ve brought my organizational and detailed focused skills to the Flower Shuttle by collaborating with two student groups and having them build us an online site for tracking volunteer hours and deliveries. We also have Masters of Accounting students complete community volunteers hours with our group. Finally, we added the NCSU Feed the Pack foodbank to our recipient list so now those who are food insecure can also receive flowers when they come to the food bank.

What sets us apart is our mission to give flowers to those who otherwise would not receive them. This means that we have a process to approve recipients and we focus on serving groups and facilities that are the neediest rather than the most convenient to deliver to. We are actually at the point where it’s challenging to find new recipients because we serve so many already.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
I believe that the Flower Shuttle has a good balance between providing a place for volunteers to gather together and the understanding that we are all responsible for making the mission successful. Some tasks, like arranging, are more fun than others, like cleaning vases. But we have a culture where we all know that we have to do the fun and not so fun tasks, or our recipients won’t get flowers. This sense of working together is important to our success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theflowershuttle.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theflowershuttle_nc?igsh=ODdvanlkb25qaTNy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theflowershuttle/