The Connells Maple Lee Kids Club event on June 22 will help kick off the annual Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger food drive.
Children ages 5 to 12 are asked to donate a non-perishable food item as the price of admission and to bring an empty food can to fill with flowers.
Participants also will have an opportunity to enter the kids club’s birthday card design contest for a chance to win a flower delivery.
Time slots are available at 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.
Registration is required by calling your nearest Connells Maple Lee store: 2408 E. Main St., Bexley, 614-237-8653; 2033 Stringtown Road, Grove City, 614-539-4000; and 8573 Owenfield Drive, Powell, 740-548-4082.
Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger is June 21-29. The collected food will be donated to the Mid-Ohio Foodbank.
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‘Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger’ returns June 21-29 to benefit Mid-Ohio Foodbank
Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger will return June 21-29 to collect non-perishable food items for the Mid-Ohio Foodbank.
Customers are asked to bring food items to any Connells Maple Lee Flowers & Gifts store and place them in a collection box. For each food item, they will receive a free carnation, up to a maximum of six carnations per family per visit.
In its first year in 2012, Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger collected 83 pounds of food for the food bank.
Making arrangements: public design class
You don’t have to be a professional designer in order to make a beautiful floral arrangement. Not when you have a professional designer from Connells Maple Lee on hand to guide you.
Our Jill Elmore led nine participants (including one from as far away as Chillicothe) in our April 27 public design class. The three-hour class was held in Connells Maple Lee’s central design department in Grove City.
Jill taught her students how to create a festive springtime arrangement.
We typically offer design classes three times per year, including a two-part class in early November. If you are interested in attending a future class, please contact Jill at jill.elmore@usretailflowers.com.
We’ll handle your long-distance Mother’s Day order
Flowers are a time-honored way of letting mom know just how much you love her. But sending flowers long distance can be confusing and sometimes disappointing, especially if you are not familiar with the process and some of the pitfalls.
The Internet has given rise to thousands of flower-delivery options. But how do you know you’re really getting a good price and high-quality service? And will the flowers arrive on time?
That great price might not be so great
Many websites touting great prices show you a gorgeous arrangement – only to deliver a bunch of flowers in a box that mom still has to put in a vase. In many cases, what is delivered is similar to what you’ll find in a grocery store or at a street vendor. It might be a nice bouquet but not arranged in a container; often, the container costs extra.
After adding extra charges such as service and delivery fees, the great price that first got your attention might not be any better than what a local florist would charge.
Beware of unscrupulous companies
Perhaps you know of a florist where mom lives. But be careful if you use a search engine to find contact information for that florist. Many unscrupulous companies make themselves appear to be local florists – maybe the one that you’re familiar with – by using a similar name or even a local phone number (that ultimately rings to another state).
These companies tend to charge high service and delivery fees, only to hand off the delivery to someone else. They charge you fees that they didn’t earn, and you don’t get what you paid for.
Call early – and call Connells Maple Lee
You can avoid these hassles and ensure the best results by placing your order early – and by calling us when you do.
We’re proud to be your local florist, but we also are one of the largest senders of long-distance orders in the country. Other florists want to keep us happy because they want to continue receiving our business. We also foster our relationships with them through our regular participation in national florist meetings.
In short, we can resolve the rare problem when it occurs. What’s more, we have strong ties to FTD and Teleflora, the two largest wire services that florists use to transmit their orders, and they will step in if necessary to make sure that problems are addressed to our customers’ satisfaction.
Sending flowers long distance can be confusing, but it doesn’t have to be. Just call us, and we’ll make the process easy. We’ll handle your out-of-town order with the same care and attention it would receive if we were delivering it ourselves.
Connells Maple Lee voted ‘Best of Columbus’ fourth straight year
Starting in 2010, Columbus Alive added a top florist category to its annual “Best of Columbus” reader survey.
Connells Maple Lee has won the category in each of the survey’s four years of existence.
Columbus Alive, a weekly entertainment newspaper and website serving central Ohio, presented the 2013 results in its March 28 print edition. The survey garnered 532,243 votes from 15,579 voters.
Of Connells Maple Lee’s latest selection, Columbus Alive wrote: “The gift of flowers can brighten any day, sure, but part of why our readers think Connells Maple Lee is a cut above the rest is the company’s outreach programs.”
Specifically, the article cited Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger, which collects non-perishable foods for the Mid-Ohio Foodbank, and Bouquets for Books, which collects new children’s books for public libraries in Bexley, Grove City and Powell.
“Sounds like Connells Maple Lee deserves some Thank You flowers,” Columbus Alive wrote.
We say thank you to the readers and customers who cast their ballots for Connells Maple Lee. We’ll continue to work hard to earn your votes.
Here’s how to extend the life of your Easter blooms
Even after the Easter Bunny has visited and the last eggs are hunted, Easter plants will bring beauty and color into your home. In fact, you can make the flowers last a lot longer by following some easy steps.
What’s more, after your bulb plants – such as daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, crocus and narcissus – have finished blooming, you can transplant the bulbs into the ground and watch the flowers come up next year.
The key to making the flowers/blooms last longer – perhaps twice as long – is to keep the plants in a cool place, such as at night. This will stall the normal aging process, extending the life of the blooms.
While you’re sleeping, place the plants in your garage or out on your porch (but don’t let them freeze), and then bring them back inside your house in the morning. For smaller plants, such as a single-bloom hyacinth, you might even have room in your refrigerator.
Of course, it’s also important to keep the plants watered.
Once the blooms peak, let the plant die back into itself, nourishing the bulb. Keep the bulb in its pot and store in a cool, dark place. In early fall, separate the bulbs and plant them in your garden in anticipation of their blooming again next spring.
Thanks for joining us at Saturday’s CML Kids Club event; three more this year!
There’s a spring in our steps after Saturday’s Connells Maple Lee Kids Club event, and not just because it involved hyacinth plants for Easter.
We just had a great time seeing everyone who turned out. Thanks to the children and parents who joined us.
This is our biggest year of kids club events ever, with three more to come:
- June 22: Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger
- Aug. 17: Back to school
- Oct. 26: Halloween/Bouquets for Books
Remember that it’s free for children ages 5 to 12 to join the kids club: just stop by any store or fill out the registration form on our website.
We look forward to seeing a big crowd in June.
Meet Margaret Zempter
If idleness is the devil’s playground, then the Prince of Darkness can take his ball and go home as far as Margaret Zempter is concerned.
Having worked 14 years in sales at JCPenney and then in quality control for a hotel that eventually closed, Margaret retired at age 62. She unretired two weeks later.
“I couldn’t take the retirement,” she said. “I have to be busy. I can’t be idle at all.”
Instead, on April 14, 1994, she joined the “phone room” at what was then Connells Flowers. Margaret, who turned 81 in December 2012, works close to 30 hours per week at Connells Maple Lee in Bexley.
“She’s always telling me she wants more hours,” quipped store manager Roger Morgan.
While most of her time is spent working the phones, Margaret said she does a little bit of everything: watering plants, arranging and processing flowers, cleaning up when co-workers finish with their work.
“I love people,” Margaret said. “I love my phone customers. I love my people I work with in all the stores.”
She has helped at Powell and Grove City on occasion, you see.
She still drives to work from her residence, a senior community in Columbus. She cooks and bakes: lots of desserts, she said, macaroni and cheese, meat loaf.
She has four grown children, three of whom live in the Columbus area, the fourth approximately 90 miles south in her native Scioto County. Her former husband’s Air Force career meant family moves to Cheyenne, Wyo., Boston, Plattsburg, N.Y.
These days, Margaret doesn’t travel much, unless you count her activity at work. She’s particularly fond of the year-end holidays.
The yuletide makes people happy, she said, and “there’s not one minute that you aren’t busy, and I love that.”
Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger returns June 21-29 to benefit Mid-Ohio Foodbank
Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger, which benefits the Mid-Ohio Foodbank, will return for its second year June 21-29.
Last year’s inaugural event collected 83 pounds of non-perishable food items.
Customers receive a free carnation for each non-perishable food item they donate, up to a maximum of six carnations per family per visit.
Food collection boxes are placed in each of Connells Maple Lee’s stores in Bexley, Grove City and Powell during the event.
In conjunction with Connells Maple Lee Stems Hunger, the Connells Maple Lee Kids Club will host an event for children ages 5 to 12 in all of our stores on June 22.
Decorate hyacinth basket at free Connells Maple Lee Kids Club event on March 16
The Connells Maple Lee Kids Club will get the Easter season hopping with a free event on March 16 at all Connells Maple Lee stores.
Children ages 5 to 12 will be able to decorate a hyacinth basket for Easter. They can take the plant home and watch it bloom. Participants also will receive a balloon.
Time slots are available at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Registration is required by calling your nearest Connells Maple Lee store: 2408 E. Main St. (Route 40), Bexley, 614-237-8653; 2033 Stringtown Road, Grove City, 614-539-4000; and 8573 Owenfield Drive, Powell, 740-548-4082.
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