When Karen Fountain, AAF, of Flowers ‘n’ Ferns stepped into the office of Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) on the morning of Tuesday, March 12, she was ready for a challenge. Earlier this year, Kaine joined with 30 senators to introduce a bill that would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2024 —an increase that Fountain said will devastate her small retail flower shop in Burke, Virginia. “I showed him real numbers from our store — our costs, our profits — and walked him through how this kind of change would affect all of us,” Fountain said. “I didn’t change his mind, and I wasn’t expecting to do that in one meeting, but he thanked me for bringing actual numbers to our meeting and for such a good conversation. The most important thing to me is that I got to go in there and make the case in person for my business.”
This week, more than 90 retail florists, wholesalers, suppliers and growers came together during the Society of American Florists’ 39th annual Congressional Action Days to meet lawmakers and key congressional staff, discuss important issues, learn from subject matter experts, reaffirm connections and forge new relationships. In a time of deep partisanship, SAF members from 28 states, including 16 first-time attendees, used civility, personal stories and data from their individual businesses to lobby Democrats and Republicans for common sense solutions in the immigration system and to advocate for research funding and a critical federal crop report. Like Fountain, they also expressed their opposition to the effort to raise the federal minimum wage to $15.
“Lobbying can be a force for good,” said Cheryl Denham, AzMF, of Arizona Family Florist in Phoenix, an SAF volunteer leader and longtime CAD participant who introduced many of the expert speakers for the two-day event.
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