Mia Morneault

Wrapping the fabric around the vase, senior Lillian Dodds works on the December arrangement for the Flower Pack subscription. “I think it’s really important to get kids really interested in something because a lot of people take floral design just for like the art credit,” Dodds said. “But I think if there’s a lot of money going into it and people can see how cool floral design is, then that can really inspire a lot of kids to maybe want to be florists.”

Dandelions, Tiger Lilies and Beargrass, oh my. The advanced floral design class is starting up their annual subscription-based fundraiser once again. Advised by Floral Design teacher Mackenzie Morton, the Flower Pack consists of a team of eight students trying to improve their skills before they move into the workforce.

“The class is for students who are interested in the floral design pathway, but also a career in the floral industry,” Morton said. “So, that class just gives them more hands-on experience, more arrangements. They really get to take ownership of their learning and what they learn in that class.”

Making 15 to 30 arrangements per month, The Flower Pack’s main goal is to raise money for the department and work as a team to design monthly floral arrangements to sell to community members. According to Morton, the students in class are enhancing their design and business skills along with hands-on experiences by providing community members, staff and businesses with fresh floral products.

“Flowers make people happy,” Morton said. “So, just having them investing in the students that are in this class raises students up. I have 120 students taking Floral Design I. Just seeing that investment in the floral design program and seeing that product that they make is a pretty big incentive.”

Senior Lillian Dodds is the only third level floral design student in the class and said the course has inspired her to pursue becoming a florist.

“I think it’s really important to get kids really interested in something because a lot of people take floral design just for like the art credit,” Dodds said. “But I think if there’s a lot of money going into it and people can see how cool floral design is, then that can really inspire a lot of kids to maybe want to be florists. I know it inspired me to want to be a florist and go to the advanced class. Those who do want to have a career in floristry and being a floral designer can have experience making the expensive arrangements.”

Morton said the price is an incentive and said she thinks teachers should take advantage of the low-cost arrangements.

“Since everyone gets divided into teams, they’re pulling together their entire arrangement, whether it’s an arrangement that’s going to go out the next month, in September or October or May, we already have the orders and arrangements,” Morton said. “When you go to the grocery store, you’ll buy them for $60. When we make the arrangement in class, we sell them for only $28 per month.”

Last year, the “Flower of the Month Club” fundraiser raised just over $1,000 from their subscription service. People who are interested can subscribe through the CPHS webstore, and choose different tiers depending on how many arrangements they are interested in. Each arrangement is $28 dollars, but there is a link to pay in advance through the spring semester and yearly subscription tiers, both totaling from $140-$206 dollars.

Advanced Floral Design student, junior Laila Franklin, has designed two arrangements and believes the work ethic of the class can be enjoyable, it also is very realistic to the real world floral industry.

“It’s really fun,” Franklin said. “We get to pick the container and the flowers that go with it. It was very collaborative because we worked with Morton a lot. I think it can be really stressful at times because we have to work quickly to create arrangements at the end of class, but it’s also really calm because there’s only eight people in the class. So it makes it really easy to work together and stuff like that.”