Impact and Give Back | Toys for Kids
A Gala of Giving
-Liesel Schmidt
It all started in 2012 with a bicycle.
Or rather, a lack of them.
At the time, co-owners of Orange Beach-based Wildflowers Boutique and mother-daughter team Terri Long and Candice Duncan, had heard that Christian Service Center would be short on bicycles for their holiday toy drive and wanted to help. “Candice and I had already been involved with CSC for two years, starting with their Angel Tree Program that we supported at our boutique,” Long explains. “We knew when we started Wildflowers together that we wanted to give back to the community together, as well. When we heard about the need for bicycles that year, we pitched an idea to the owner of Fisher’s Dockside to allow Wildflowers to host a small fashion show during Locals’ Night and charge a $25 donation at the door for ‘Bikes for Kids,’ as the drive was called at that time. With that $25 at donation at the door combined with people donating bikes, we raised over 250 bikes that night for the CSC.”
Energized and encouraged by that success, Long and Duncan decided that they would continue the bicycle drive as an annual event. Over the next three years, Wildflowers Boutique and Fisher’s Dockside continued in partnership—and then, they outgrew the space. “Candice and I were approached by Karl Groux of Perdido Beach Resort, who asked us to allow him to help us to build this event into something even bigger by changing up the venue to their Grand Ballroom.”
