Mother's Day Flower Stall

Carina State School Annual Mother’s Day Flower Stall

For the last 34 years, parents at Carina State School have been busy spending their Mothers’ Day weekend bunching up flowers for their annual Mother’s Day flower stall.

Located on a busy road, this small state school of only approximately 350 families has become an institution for locals looking to buy flowers for Mother's Day.

On the Friday before Mother’s Day, the flowers arrive from the wholesaler and an army of volunteers works on their basketball court to create the bunches, which are then moved to a position near the carpark on the main road, set up with marquees and a large electronic sign that they hire to broadcast their message.

They sell bunches at three different price points – $20, $35 and $50, as well as potted flowers. They create approximately 600 bunches of the $20 variety and 200 each priced at $25 and $35. They also have vases with arrangements for $40.

We have been following Carina State School and their amazing achievements since 2016. We decided it was time to get an update and spoke with Jaine, the P&C President, who, with a number of volunteers organised this year’s flower stall.

How much do you raise?

We raise around $20,000 each year after all expenses. We are always very pleased with the result and happy with the size of the stall as it means we can be home with our families before lunch time on Sunday.

Overall we sold over 1,000 bunches of flowers, 200 potted plants and 100 arrangements in vases.

How do you keep volunteers engaged?

Keeping our volunteers in the school engaged is mostly a product of enthusiasm. We always have new faces from those that join the school for the first time each year and this fosters friendships with them and their children – and then their friends came along and so forth.

We also have parents come along that have been doing this each year as well as a number of people that come even after their children have left the school to go on to high school. The old hands showing the new the ropes is what community is all about.

We really do think that if you make it easy and fun for volunteers they will come back. People love to be able to get in and do something different that they normally wouldn’t be able to do. We also have families provide home baked goodies to feed the volunteer army over the course of the weekend. As well as support from our local, state and federal politicians that come and help out during the weekend. This support during their busy schedule is always appreciated.

How do you promote to the outside community?

As far as keeping the community at large engaged  – after 33 years our Flower Stall is now an institution. During COVID when we actually couldn’t run the stall it was really noticed and sorely missed. We have so many people tell us that this is where they buy their flowers for their mum every year, and have done so since they were children themselves – many of them previous students but many also are members of our community who return to support us year after year.

We have the support of the local papers, community social media and radio, as well as our local members for council, state and federal parliament. Our school is also hired out for community activities – martial arts, dog training, dancing and basketball groups all use our grounds. We have also fostered relationships with local businesses that allows us to contribute to our community and receive their support as well.

Other ways that you communicate with your community:

We communicate calendar of events as early as possible and make use of ‘outside’ events on school grounds so we are not always asking parents to fund and we have jobs everyone can do to contribute- allows working parents to help too eg baked goods, overnight sitters, etc. Also report back frequently where money is being spent so parents can see it goes straight back to their children’s education and well being. Finally we are accepting of everyone regardless of skill level, experience or language spoken. We love to meet new people who want to get in and try something different.

Well done to Jaine and the team at Carina State School!