Written by our Founder and CEO, the Celebrations Pulse letters aim to engage with our community. By welcoming your ideas and sharing your stories, we want to help you strengthen your relationships with the most important people in your life.
Valentine’s is often associated with grand romantic gestures like candlelit dinners, decadent chocolates, and fragrant bouquets exchanged between partners. And there’s nothing wrong with that — romantic love is worth celebrating!
But, as I mentioned last week, this holiday isn’t just about romance. It’s about love in all its forms: the love of family, the love of friends, even the camaraderie shared with coworkers. And every kind of love deserves to be celebrated because, at its core, love is love.
This week, I want to highlight one of the most enduring and selfless kinds of love: the love of the person who first adored you. The one who stood by you through every scraped knee, every bad grade, and every misstep since then — who loves you still, no matter what.
I’m talking, of course, about moms.
The enduring impact of moms
Moms play an irreplaceable role in the world (which might just be the world’s biggest understatement). They’re the reason we’re here and, with the help of dads, they guide us through life’s ups and downs.
But motherly love isn’t defined by biology alone. It includes anyone who has stepped into a maternal role in your life, like a stepmom, a grandmother, a neighbor, a teacher, a mentor, or anyone who has offered support and unconditional love, whether you deserved it or not.
These motherly relationships reshape us and our society in ways big and small. On a personal level, they instill the values we live by. And more broadly, those values shape our society as they ripple through families, neighborhoods, and larger communities.
At 1-800-Flowers.com, we see this firsthand. For two years, we’ve been asking our community for stories of Amazing Moms and then sharing their inspiring stories with all our readers around the world. Each story serves as a reminder of the power of motherly love and the impact it has inside families and beyond.
One shining example is Ashley Manning, February’s Amazing Mom of the Month.
A passion rooted in flowers
For Ashley, flowers are her love language. Growing up in Pittsburgh, she found joy in surrounding herself with fresh blooms, a passion that followed her into adulthood. After moving to Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2006 with her husband and their four children, she turned her love of flowers into a creative pursuit, crafting floral arrangements for family and friends.
“I love the way flowers make people feel,” she says. “No matter what it is, if you've lost somebody, if you're celebrating something, if you're mourning — they just bring this breath of life.”
Ashley’s journey took a turn in February 2020 when she learned that one of her son’s teachers had lost her husband to cancer. She gifted the grieving widow a bouquet — a simple yet powerful gesture of compassion. Seeing the impact it had, she felt called to do more.
The following year, Ashley took to Instagram, rallying her community to help create Valentine’s bouquets for widows. The response was overwhelming, and the Valentine’s Day Widow Outreach Project was born. What started as 125 bouquets in its first year quickly grew to 400 the next.
Today, with a team of 900 volunteers and 500 drivers, her initiative has touched the lives of countless widows, offering them not only flowers but also care packages, support, and the reassurance that they’re not alone.
Ashley’s children are also deeply involved in the project. She shares a story of making a delivery to an elderly neighbor’s home. Afterward, her daughter, Mia, expressed how good it made her feel to bring happiness to someone who needed it. Ashley says:
Spreading the love
Ashley’s efforts extend far beyond a single bouquet. They send a powerful message of love and community. They let women who’ve lost their husbands know that they’re not forgotten.
Jillian Myers, one of the volunteers and recipients of Ashley’s generosity, knows firsthand how much these small acts of kindness mean. After losing her husband, Jason, in a helicopter crash, Jillian received a bouquet from Ashley. Jillian says:
Ashley’s story brings to mind a quote from French philosopher Simone Weil: “The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to them, ‘What are you going through?’” This simple yet powerful sentence, shared with me by my friend and 1-800-Flowers.com board member Adam Hanft, perfectly captures the spirit of Ashley’s work and the empathy that drives her.
Ashley doesn’t just acknowledge the struggles of others. She actively seeks to understand, support, and uplift those in need. The Valentine’s Day Widow Outreach Project is more than just a gesture of kindness; it’s a reflection of her belief that no one should feel alone in their grief.
This selfless love — the kind that nurtures without expectation, gives without limits, and uplifts without seeking recognition — is at the heart of what makes a mother’s love extraordinary and worthy of Valentine’s celebrations.
All the best,
Jim
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AUTHOR
Jim McCann is the founder, CEO, and chairman of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. as well as a business leader, author, and philanthropist with a passion for helping people deliver smiles. Devoted to helping others, he also founded Smile Farms, a 501(c)3 organization that provides meaningful jobs in agricultural settings to young adults and adults with developmental disabilities.
