Jen commented in an email that it’s things like this news story that make her lose all faith in people. Today I found a reason to keep the faith: FlowerPower.

Since February 2003, FlowerPower has “collected over $1,200,000 of donated flowers, re-assembled and given them to those who rarely receive such gifts of hope.”

FlowerPower began as a New York City nonprofit (they now also serve Los Angeles) shortly after Nancy Lawlor, who was a clerical temp at the time, convinced a Waldorf-Astoria manager to give her $2,000 worth of pink roses, which would have been thrown out when new flowers arrived for the hotel’s lobby, to deliver to patients of Lenox Hill Hospital. Nancy Lawlor is featured on Page 44 of February’s O Magazine.