Article Presented by:
Wesley Berry, AAF
Has someone done something particularly sweet for you this year? Does your sweetheart deserve a treat for being the best friend you could have? Or, is your best friend the greatest person you know? You're in luck! There's a day set aside each year just to recognize the "sweetest" people in our lives-Sweetest Day.
Sweetest Day is celebrated each year on the third Saturday in October. Its origins are a bit foggy. Some have chalked up as a contrived holiday designed to sell more greeting cards and candies. Others believe it began as a philanthropic event. The most widely accepted story surrounding the first Sweetest Day seems to combine a bit of both theories.
The first Sweetest Day on record was celebrated in 1921 and was reported in The Cleveland Plain Dealer on October 8, 1921. Some people attribute the creation of the day to Herbert Birch Kingston, an employee at a candy company. Others, though, believe it was an idea produced by the candy making companies themselves as a means of boosting sales. Whatever the case, according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, the first Sweetest Day was planned by a committee made up of 12 candy makers. The committee organized the distribution of 19,500 boxes of candy around the city of Cleveland, Ohio. The candy went to orphans, homeless people, newsboys, and other citizens who were experience difficulties. Helping with the distribution were some of the biggest names in movies for that time period. Celebrity distributors included actresses Theda Bara and Anne Pennington.
Today, Sweetest Day has its largest population of celebrators in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The cities that have the greatest number of Sweetest Day followers are Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. Retail Confectioners International calls the day an "occasion which offers all of us an opportunity to remember not only the sick, aged, and orphaned, but also friends, relatives, and associates whose helpfulness and kindness we have enjoyed."
One of the ways many people choose to celebrate Sweetest Day is by sending flowers to those they love and appreciate. Your gift could be anywhere from an enormous and extravagant display of roses, to a basket of brightly colored mixed flowers, or a single bloom given out to all the many people who make your life a little better. Your florist can help you choose the perfect flowers to send to anyone in your life who deserves to be told how sweet they are.
About the Author:
Wesley Berry is member of the American Academy of Floriculture (AAF) and President of Wesley Berry Flowers, a successful multi-million dollar floral business that was established in 1946. He is also the developer of Localnewsdelivery.com a website that delivers local news to over 40,000 communities across the country. Recently he also launched a website providing information about various places of worship throughout the United States. Visit Wesley Berry Flowers on the web at www.800wesleys.com.
