A Knoxville-based nonprofit has been bringing smiles to hundreds of thousands of people’s faces for 10 years now, and it all started with one bouquet of flowers.

Random acts of flowers celebrated its 10th birthday Tuesday.

Fran Scheidt has been constructing the floral creations since the very beginning.

“It was about a third the size of this,” she said describing their warehouse.

Being a master gardener, she knows what she’s doing.

“Something most people could do. There are principles of arranging that you just sort of follow,” she said.

Others volunteering, like Connie Stockinger, are new to the art of arranging.

“Some of them are neighbors and I work a lot in the yard. They were like you would love coming to Flowers and arranging,” she said. “I’ve been hooked ever since.”

All of the volunteers do it for a reason. Once they are done, the blooms are all headed for special deliveries.

“Sometimes we think these turn out like an ugly stepchild, but you see the smile on people’s faces and it makes your whole day,” Stockinger said.

In 10 years Random Acts of Flowers has expanded to Tampa Bay, Chicago and Indianapolis, and they have handed out 340,000 bouquets made from donated flowers, in hospitals, assisted living facilites and hospice care. About 90,000 of those have been in Knoxville where it all began.

“I like to be around people, but I like what we’re doing,” Scheidt said.

It has been 10 years of brightening days with beautiful blossoms.

They expect to have made more than 500,000 deliveries by the end of next year.

If you would like to contribute to the cause, volunteer, or donate flowers or vases you can find more information at https://randomactsofflowers.org/.