Turning Young Seedlings into Blossoming Entrepreneurs

Thursday, April 26, 2012 was Take Your Child to Work Day and a dozen beaming young sprouts arrived bright and early to the 1800FLOWERS.COM corporate headquarters, anxious to participate in the company’s annual celebration!

Greeted by the 1800FLOWERS CEO and President Jim and Chris McCann, along with the human resources team, the youngsters received words of wisdom from the company founders, who then sent the mini entrepreneurs on their day long journey into the workforce!

Take Your Child to Work Day at 1800Flowers 2012
Jim McCann, CEO & Chris McCann, President, provide the kids with words of wisdom.



Take Your Child to Work Day is a nationally recognized educational program aimed at teaching children more about the workforce in general, specifically where their parents, mentors, and idols work each day.  Every year, on the fourth Thursday of April, employers are encouraged by the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Foundation to open their doors to the children of their employees in their communities.  In honor is its 20th anniversary, the foundation deemed “Build Opportunity: 20 Years of Education, Empowerment, Experience,” as the 2012 theme.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM loves to continiously help bring this vision to life, inviting the children of our employees to get hands-on work experience as they learn more about our company and where their role models, their mothers or fathers, work on a daily basis.  After The day commenced with introductions and a photo opportunity with Jim & Chris McCann in the on-site retail store, the kids looked forward to a packed and enlightening schedule.

Take Your Child to Work Day - Teaching the Kids About Social Media
The Take Your Child to Work Day kids learn about social media.

In the later morning the children were invited to participate in a social media discussion, led by Joe Macaluso and Josh Gordon of the Interative Marketing department.Together, they explained to the importance of social media and how it benefits the company. Through the use of graphs and other visuals, Josh and Joe showed that social media is more than just fun and games.  They learned how 1800Flowers use social media sites to showcase new and existing products, engage with customers, and receive key performance metrics such as comments, “likes” and “shares.”

Next, the children were escorted on a company tour of the building, where they were introduced to different departments from Merchandising to Marketing to get a well rounded view of the different divisions and respective responsibilities that make up 1800Flowers.

After a quick pizza break, our blossoming businesspersons participated in an anti-bullying discussion and were assigned group projects to present to their parents, executing real world skills!

take your child to work day flower arrangements
The Take Your Child to Work Day kids arrange Mother’s Day flowers!

The day concluded with a floral arrangement class led by Professional Floral Designer Phillip DeVito, who helped the children arrange Mother’s Day flowers for an early Mother’s Day gift to give to their moms! Teaching the kids about delivering smiles, which is what 1800Flowers does best, by giving flowers and gifts is a priceless lesson, not to mention fun!

Over 37 million Americans at 3.5 million companies participated in ‘Take Your Child to Work Day’ (TYCWD) this year.  1800FLOWERS.COM continues to focus on social responsibility and support the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Foundation’s goal of  “Education, Empowerment, Experience,” enlightening the community’s young entrepreneurs through this program.  The opportunity to motivate and encourage America’s youth to develop a positive work ethic is one we look forward to every year!

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