November 1, 2025
Can a chance encounter transform thousands of lives and help a major U.S. employer address an unmet business need?
For 1-800-Flowers, it did.
On a flight in 2022, founder and then-CEO Jim McCann struck up a conversation with his seatmate, Monica Block, who had recently lost her husband Greg to cancer. In 2007, Greg had left a successful entrepreneurial career in the home textiles industry to start First Step Staffing, a nonprofit that provides a pathway to economic stability for underserved communities through employment and retention services.
As McCann and Block talked, they realized they shared a core belief — that people benefit when they find meaningful employment. The McCann family already had established Smile Farms, a nonprofit organization that creates meaningful employment and provides vocational and educational opportunities for people with disabilities.
McCann and Block saw an opportunity to partner in Atlanta, where 1-800-Flowers and its 19 brands — including Harry & David and Things Remembered — needed employees to meet customer demand during the busy holiday season. They got to work, creating a partnership that now supplies 1-800-Flowers with a reliable, engaged pool of people who take immense joy and pride in their work.
Every year ahead of the holidays, 1-800-Flowers must double its workforce to fill the millions of orders it receives across all of its brands. Kendra Tolford, senior director of talent acquisition, explained that her internal talent team relies on staffing firms to tap new sources of talent, since it can’t make all those hires on its own.
First Step is one of the company’s primary external partners.
Tolford said First Step addresses 100% of its seasonal staffing needs in Atlanta, filling about 250 job openings each year. These hires from First Step also maintain higher-than-average retention rates. Though workers are temporary, they show up day after day to get the job done, meeting high demands and tight timelines, and bringing a “human element” to the art of designing gift boxes and flower arrangements.
First Step hires are so reliable and attentive to detail, Tolford said, that her company has transitioned some of these teammates to permanent, full-time work.
“First Step employees are great performers, and some of our most reliable associates,” Tolford said. “Our annual revenue is dependent upon finding people who want to and can work around the holidays. We need people to make and ship those gifts. The associates that First Step is bringing are not just hitting numbers. They’re contributing and driving our success.”
First Step CEO Amelia Nickerson explained the secret that makes First Step employees so successful: They’re motivated.
“Our founder Greg would say the individuals we hire are heroes because they are making incredible efforts to overcome some very traumatic experiences,” Nickerson said. “There’s a resiliency they bring to the table. They want to get a job, but they’ve been told ‘no’ repeatedly. Our partnership with 1-800-Flowers is transformational for them, but it also shows the potential of untapped talent.”
For both McCann and Block, a job is more than a paycheck. It is a chance to live a life of meaning — one filled with dignity, opportunity, and hope. But the 1-800-Flowers partnership with First Step is not only about helping people traditionally shut out of the labor market find their passion and purpose. It is about fulfilling business needs.
“Every employer talks about skills gaps, lower labor market participation rates, the fact that we’ll need 6 million additional workers in the next decade to fill jobs,” said Nickerson. “Tapping into new talent pools must be a critical component of every company’s business plan, especially because these employees want to work. They’ve just been told ‘no’ over and over again.”
Since its founding, First Step has expanded beyond Atlanta to seven other cities. It serves people experiencing homelessness, those impacted by the legal system, veterans, refugees, and women who have experienced domestic violence. In 2024, it helped nearly 8,500 individuals collectively earn more than $42 million in wages. Last year, First Step also added 26 new employer partners to its already substantial roster of customers.
Nickerson said the rapid growth is due in part to the fact that First Step is not like other staffing firms. It doesn’t just place people with its employer partners — First Step also provides housing support, mental health care, transportation, child care, and no-cost upskilling programs, enabling people to continue finding new ways to contribute to the businesses that hire them.
Both First Step and 1-800-Flowers work daily to ensure employee success.
“If a manager notices somebody is struggling with something, they tell us so we can jump in and address the need,” said Nickerson. “If we need to adjust our transportation services because a second shift needs to run an extra hour to get the work done, we can adjust around that. It’s not just a partnership on paper; we’re having daily conversations.”
As 1-800-Flowers enters another holiday season, Tolford said, she can see the partnership with First Step transforming the company in more profound ways.
“First Step employees are changing our culture,” she said. “They’re driving diversity. They’re driving engagement, and renewing our belief in our mission, which, as our founders have said, is to create and foster community.”
First Step Staffing is supported by Stand Together Foundation, which empowers individuals to reach their full potential through community-driven change.
Learn more about Stand Together’s efforts to transform the future of workand explore ways you can partner with us.