Loneliness is a health risk. Connection is care.
Nearly one in four Americans over 65 is socially isolated, and more than a third of adults over 45 say they feel lonely.¹
The U.S. Surgeon General has found that lacking social connection raises the risk of early death as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, more than obesity or physical inactivity.²
Social isolation is also associated with roughly a 50% higher risk of developing dementia.¹
What a bouquet can do
Flowers don't cure loneliness. But in a 2001 Rutgers University study of 104 older adults, conducted with the Society of American Florists, found that receiving flowers made a measurable difference: 81% reported feeling less depressed, 40% widened their social circle beyond family and close friends, and those who received flowers scored higher on memory tests than those who didn't.³ Those are self-reported results from a small group, and we say so. What they point to is something simpler and harder to measure: a bouquet arriving unexpectedly is proof that someone, somewhere, thought of you.
What ReBloom SD does about it
Every ReBloom SD delivery is a moment of connection, twice over. A volunteer walks in, hands someone flowers, and stays for a conversation. And the card in every bouquet says where the flowers came from, so a resident in memory care knows that a couple who got married on Saturday wanted them to have a piece of that day. We can't fix isolation. We can make sure that someone who might have felt forgotten gets a reminder that they are seen.
How your support helps
The flowers are donated. Getting them to a bedside takes fuel, buckets, refrigeration, insurance, cards, and volunteer hours. A gift to ReBloom SD turns rescued flowers into delivered ones.
¹ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults, 2020. ² U.S. Surgeon General, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, 2023. ³ Haviland-Jones, Rutgers University, Flowers & Seniors Study, 2001, in collaboration with the Society of American Florists.