Marking Valentine's Day after the loss of a partner or spouse is undeniably difficult, so one North Carolina woman has stepped up to help.
Ashley Manning, a mom of four in Charlotte, and a team of volunteers will deliver flowers and gift bags to hundreds of widows across the city this Valentine's Day.
It's an effort that Manning, a pharmaceutical sales rep turned stay-at-home mom, began in 2021, shortly after she turned her hobby of flower arranging into a business the previous year.
"When I started Pretty Things by A.E. Manning, I started thinking about Valentine's Day," Manning said, noting that for many years she had made Valentine's Day bouquets for her kids' teachers and family friends going through difficult times. "I thought, I have a platform now to maybe involve more people."
In 2021, Manning took to Instagram to share her idea to give flowers to women who wouldn't be receiving any on Valentine's Day from their late partner or spouse.
Within hours of her post, Manning said she received hundreds of dollars in donations and the names of dozens of women who had been nominated by others.
MORE: Grieving COVID-19 widow reflects on keeping her husband's memory alive, finding communityThanks go Manning's efforts, on Feb. 14, 2021, over 100 women and two men opened their doors to surprise floral arrangements and a gift bag with a note that included the lyrics, "There's never been a moment you were forgotten," from the song "Rescue" by Lauren Daigle.
One of those women was Jordan Meggs, who was marking her first Valentine's Day without her husband, Daniel, who died of colon cancer at age 29 on Feb. 21, 2020, when Meggs was 37 weeks pregnant with their first child.
"I wasn’t expecting it, and I was shocked and so surprised by such a sweet thing," Meggs said of the flowers and gift bag. "Before, I never thought of what widows are doing on Valentine’s Day, but it’s just in Ashley to think of others all the time. It’s just who she is."
The next year, Manning raised over $22,000 and oversaw 300 volunteers who assembled over 13,000 stems of flowers into floral arrangements for 400 widows.
In addition to the flowers, the women also receive a gift bag with wine and gifts and gift cards from local businesses who have donated their goods, according to Manning.
"It just kind of snowballed, but it's a neat thing to see a good thing snowball," said Manning, who oversaw the effort in 2022 while recovering from a debilitating eye injury that left her with vision loss in one eye. "They say misery loves company, but I think happiness loves company, too."
In 2022, among the volunteers who came to Manning's home to assemble the flowers and gift baskets were several women who had previously received flowers from the project, including Meggs.
And in 2023, one of the arrangements went to Meggs's mother-in-law, whose husband had recently died unexpectedly.
"Like my husband, my mother-in-law loves Valentine’s Day," Meggs said. "She instilled that in my husband, and that’s why he made it so special for me throughout the years."
MORE: Hospital heart patients wish everyone a Happy Valentine's DayManning has turned the project, which she calls the Valentine's Day Widow Outreach Project, into a nonprofit organization, so she can continue to expand and reach more women.
She said she has received countless messages of thanks from the women who received flowers, and she has been overjoyed to see family and friends start similar efforts on whatever scale they could, like her sister who gave Valentine's Day flowers to widows at her gym.
"The most important thing that I've learned through this whole outreach is that when you feel that tug on your heart for whatever it is, because this world is full of things that are sad and hard and there are people that are aching every day, when you feel that nudge, actually listen to it," Manning said. "Whether it's widows or widowers or if it's military spouses, or whatever it is that tugs at your heart, you just listen to it and act on it, and the reward is far greater."
"The joy that giving gives your heart is just incredible," she said.
Editor's note: This report was originally published on Feb. 14, 2022.
