Following the recent mass shooting that shook Nova Scotia, James Grant was tinkering in his shop, something he does as a way to relieve stress.
He had been asked by his sister to work on a project, a wooden flower donned with the colours of Nova Scotia.
After a bit of work, Grant presented his sister with a wooden blue and white petalled flower with the yellow and red Nova Scotia lion in the centre – now dubbed ‘The Nova Scotia Strong Flower’.
“She was really pleased with it and posted it on Facebook, next thing I knew I had six orders and then a couple of days after that a hundred orders. It just sort of took off,” he said.
He estimates he has over 5,000 orders now from all over the world and so far he, his wife Tanya an 11-year old daughter Abbigale have made 400 flowers at a rate of 25 a day.
“People said they’ll wait, however long it takes.”
Once the Grants,who live in Milton, realized that there was the potential to make a lot of money with the project they put some thought into where they could donate.
James found his answer one day in the workshop while listening to an interview given by shooting victim Kristen Beaton’s husband Nick. Beaton and another VON employee Heather O’Brien both died in the attack.
“It hit me really hard and it’s still hard for me to talk about. Everything he said was describing my wife-she has worked for the VON for 9 years and she is out in her car alone every day visiting clients. This could as easily have happened to her.”
The decision was made to create the Nova Scotia Strong Flower Fund in memory of Kristen and Heather to provide $500 bursaries for two Colchester County students enrolled in Continuing Care Assistant or Licensed Practical Nurse programs.
“The connection was there, that’s why we chose to honour them, to try and replace the loss of these two nurses in the community,” said Grant.
You can visit the Nova Scotia Strong Flower Facebook page to make an order. $5 from every purchase of the $25 flower will be put into the bursary fund.
