Marc Robinson has a few favorite memories from Memorial Day this year. Among them: Meeting two women who became friends through TAPS, a support network for people grieving the loss of a loved one who died while serving in the Armed Forces. The women realized their husbands had been friends before their deaths, just one week apart from each other. When they returned to Arlington National Cemetery this year to honor their

husbands, they were buoyed by the support of thousands of stems of flowers and hundreds of volunteers, courtesy of the Memorial Day Flowers Foundation.

“The women just told me how much it meant to them, to see all the people and the flowers,” said Robinson, the farm liaison and marketing manager for TransFlora and a volunteer with the foundation. “I met another woman who had a grandfather, grandmother, father, brother and two cousins buried at Arlington — and she was there for all of them. There are a million stories like that.”

This year, the Memorial Flowers Foundation coordinated more than 1,400 volunteers to lay 225,000 flowers at gravesites at Arlington — the cemetery where the original foundation effort was centered. Since its founding in 2011, that effort has expanded to national cemeteries across the country. This year, 155 cemeteries participated in some way with support from the foundation, with the help of 5,000 volunteers and some 430,000 flowers.

“It’s about bringing back the original meaning of Memorial Day, by encouraging people to visit cemeteries and decorate gravesites while recognizing the sacrifices made by our fallen military heroes and veterans,” said Co-Founder Ramiro Penaherrera. “Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day and people would observe the holiday by visiting cemeteries and decorating grave sites to recognize the sacrifices made by our fallen military heroes and veterans.”

Flower growers from Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia and California donate flowers for the event, according to Penaherrera who noted there has been “wide support” for the effort from industry companies across segments — including not only growers but also wholesalers, suppliers and transportation companies.  In addition, more than 200 retail florists and main street businesses distributed flowers from their shops to the public for placement in cemeteries on Memorial Day.

Michael LoBue, CEO of the California Association of Flower Growers & Shippers, has been involved in the effort since 2015, volunteering and helping to coordinate in Arlington and later at cemeteries in the San Francisco Bay area. From the beginning, he said, he hoped to expand the initiative to as many cemeteries as possible, making this year’s effort especially poignant.

“From a floral industry point of view, it is the medium by which individuals can pay a personal tribute of thanks to those who served in the militaries and their families,” said LoBue, who serves on the foundation’s board of directors. “Flowers make that possible.”

Renato Cruz Sogueco, AAF, PFCI, vice president of digital strategy and education at BloomNet and a member of the foundation’s board, coordinated efforts in Florida at Jacksonville National Cemetery and St. Augustine National Cemetery. (BloomNet served as primary sponsor for those efforts.)

This year, the team had enough flowers — 15,000 at Jacksonville and 1,500 for St. Augustine — to honor every veteran and family interred, a feat that made Sogueco especially proud.

“In previous years, we were unable to honor all the graves,” he noted, adding that among the most emotional moments of the day was a Boy Scout volunteer hugging the headstone of his own father. “This is an effort which needs to grow with more industry support. It’s incredible the impact we can make as an industry in honoring these veterans.”

Mary Westbrook is the editor in chief of Floral Management.