They show up with flowers. That’s it. And somehow, it’s enough.
A small group of Dallas-area high school students has been quietly making the rounds at a local recovery center, delivering hand-assembled bouquets to residents battling substance use disorders. No fanfare, no cameras — just fresh flowers and a few minutes of genuine human connection. It’s a simple gesture, but at the Dallas 24 Hour Club, simplicity can be powerful.
How It Started
The tradition didn’t begin with a nonprofit grant or a school service project. It started, as many good things do, with older kids passing something meaningful down to younger ones. Phoebe Rupp, now a high schooler volunteering at the Club’s new wraparound service center called Trevor’s Place, explained that she inherited the practice from a set of triplets — daughters of her mother’s close friend — who had been doing it before her. “One of my mom’s really good friends had triplet daughters and they started the whole flower girls,” Rupp said. “When they were seniors in high school, they saw me and I was an eighth grader and they thought they would pass it down to me.”
By the time Rupp was a freshman, she was already bringing her closest friends along for the visits. Her mom would drive them. They’d show up, arrange flowers, and hand them off to people who, on any given day, might be having the hardest stretch of their lives.
More Than a Bouquet
What does a flower actually do for someone in recovery? Probably not much, clinically speaking. But that’s not really the point. “When you’re having a rough day, flowers always brighten your whole experience,” Rupp said — and while that might sound like something stitched on a pillow, inside the walls of a rehab facility, the sentiment carries real weight.
Adrienne Santaularia, development director with the Dallas 24 Hour Club, put it in terms that get closer to the organization’s broader philosophy. “If someone feels like someone cares about them, they’re going to grow,” she said. “They’re going to develop into who they possibly can be, because they have the support backing them. And that’s what we do for our residents and that’s what the flower girls do as well.” The Club’s approach centers on treating the whole person — not just the addiction — and a trio of teenagers with grocery-store carnations fits neatly into that mission, whether they planned it that way or not.
The Logistics Are Humble. The Impact Isn’t.
Most of the flowers come from Trader Joe’s. The girls also seek donations when they can. There’s no elaborate supply chain here — just teenagers figuring out how to stretch a budget and show up as often as possible. Rupp is joined regularly by friends Maddie Cofer and Ava Sudbeck, the three of them assembling arrangements together before distributing them to residents at Trevor’s Place.
Still, don’t mistake the low overhead for low impact. “It’s nice to get a bouquet of flowers from somebody you don’t even know,” Sudbeck noted. “They’re just so appreciative of something so small.” That last line says something — not just about the residents, but about how rarely any of us expect a stranger to show up for us, just because.
Three high school girls with Trader Joe’s flowers, a borrowed tradition, and nowhere else they’d rather be on a Saturday morning. Sometimes that’s what community looks like.
