SAN ANTONIO – Support from across the community is pouring in to help ease the burden of the families whose loved ones were killed in a mass shooting on Tuesday morning in Uvalde at Robb Elementary.
In the city of La Coste, Ahr’s Flower Shop continues to coordinate with flower farms and wholesalers in San Antonio and around the world. The goal of owner Veronica Berger is to provide free flowers for all upcoming Robb Elementary School shooting funerals.
Berger wants to help ease the financial burden on families and the workload for her two friends and flower shop owners in Uvalde.
“I have my girlfriends that own their flower shops in the Uvalde,” Berger said. “Kelly Baker, who owns The Flower Patch, and there’s Yolanda, who owns Country Gardens & Seed. They said, ‘What can we do to help?’ And they said, ‘We’re going to need flowers. We’re going to need designers.’”
Berger began to reach out to her contacts.
“I started calling all of our wholesalers and said, ‘What can you all do?’ And they said, ‘We’ve got this, we’ve got you. We’re going to get you decked out in flowers’,” Berger said.
Now, numerous shipments are on their way to San Antonio.
“My husband owns an automotive shop, so we called U-Haul because we’re a dealer, and they said, ‘You have all the trucks you need,’” Berger said. “So, (we have) everything that we need to get the flowers off the planes and get them out there to Uvalde. And we’re just trying to get as many of these flowers for free for the families, so that they don’t have to pay for anything.”
When thinking about the Uvalde school shooting victims, Berger said she thinks about the little faces that frequently walk into her flower shop.
“I know the 10-year-olds that come in here, the ones that come and pick flowers for their parents for Mother’s Day, the ones that we made bouquets for kinder graduation, the ones we made flowers for to go to the hospital when they were born, the ones for their first father-daughter dance or their award ceremony at school,” Berger said. “We know our kids in our community, and (Uvalde) is a small community just like us. Our hearts go out to them, and everybody needs beautiful caskets.”
Flower farms in Mexico, Ecuador, Holland and California have agreed to send free flowers to the victims’ families.
“We have to get all of those planes coordinated,” Berger said. “Most of our wholesalers are paying for those flights to get out here.”
Berger expects the international shipment of flowers to arrive by Monday. She and her team of volunteers will help field phone calls and process flowers in Uvalde until then.
“Orders for casket sprays have already started coming in from family members. The first funeral that we know of is on Sunday,” Berger said on her company’s Facebook page Thursday afternoon.
Although the need for flowers has been met, monetary donations are still needed.
“We have to pay for the gas. We have to get the supplies to make the easels, to make the casket sprays and everything else that you can only get from wholesale places,” Berger said. “All of the proceeds are going to gas and supplies and whatever else that the families need, (like) fruit baskets. We’re going to have to purchase a lot of fruit because we do baskets that (are sent) to the home (of the family).”
Ahr’s Flower Shop is located at 11760 FM 2790 in La Coste, Texas.
Details on how to donate online are listed on Ahr’s Flower Shop Facebook.
In San Antonio, a Southtown coffee shop is spearheading a donation drive for the youth of Uvalde.
Alley Cat Coffee launched Plushies for Uvalde and aims to gather more than 600 stuffed animals.
“Trauma victims, they seem to like really take to plushies. It’s like that hug that isn’t there, you know, like, when you need it,” said Jasmine Treviño, owner of Alley Cat Coffee.
“A customer came up with the idea,” Treviño said. “This just keeps happening and, like, what can anyone do to stop it? We can offer a hug.”
Drop off locations include:
- Jaime’s Place 1514 W Commerce St.
- The Lighthouse Lounge 1016 Cincinnati Ave.
- Folklores Coffee House 1526 E Grayson St.
- Alley Cat Coffee 317 Probandt St.
- Friends of Sound 700 Fredericksburg Rd.
- Southtown Vinyl 1112 S St Mary’s St.
- Cigar Pointe 19186 Blanco Rd. #101
- Indy Coffee Club 114 UTSA Boulevard Suite #103
The first drop off will take place this Saturday at Sacred Heart Church in Uvalde and the Uvalde Consolidated ISD Administration Offices.
CONTINUING COVERAGE ON KSAT.COM