My belief is one can never have too many tulips. I will buy from anywhere, and often anywhere is a bucket on the stoop of a front door. This particular stoop had the most inexpensive offering. always in red/white. The hand-written sign high up on the door said that they were for the good of the KWF. Had no idea what that might be. Such collections always remind me of the popular college joke when I attended, about the young men collecting for the blind. I figured if you are brave enough to offer… I’ll help out. One of the days I stopped to buy some bunches, the long rectangle* in the middle of the door opened and a lovely gray-haired topped face appeared. Caught me by surprise as I was emptying the bucket. I handed her the money – the sign instructed putting it in the mail slot*. I asked her what KWF was thinking it was a sport club or some such. She then told the heartbreaking story of her grandson dying from cancer at age 16. Age 16 and there was no medical intervention designed especially for youth. When she came to realize this, she set herself to action. She set up a non-profit, found someone to write up the appeal and a local printer printed 500 color copies for free. She approached supermarkets, local shops, fairs, markets, anywhere she could set up to collect for this all important cause. She took various negative comments in stride. The negative comments were directed at her for being a one-person-band. And the tulips? So little money was being collected. This was her way to keep it daily at the forefront. What I found remarkable was: to get the Tulips that she sold on her stoop, she bicycles to the grower in another village, miles away, and purchases 10 bunches at a time from him. [She told me about the week she sold out so quickly she had to go twice. I did not tell her why that happened.]. I was overcome by her story from the grandson to the bike trip, I accepted the printed materials she offered. I have now recopied the sheet and everyone I come in contact with I “suggest’ that they stop and buy.
I still don’t know what the WF is in KWF
*The middle section of this door opens and one can look out.
