It hasn’t taken Tala Serhan long to learn an important lesson about working in healthcare: Small gestures can make all the difference in someone’s day.
A smile. A pop of color. An open shade that lets the sunlight in.
These brief moments, opportunities to be a light in a patient’s life, are what she loves about her job as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) at Nebraska Medicine. But for Serhan, these efforts don’t end with the workday.
This year, Serhan, a former Scholar and 2025 graduate of Westside High School, launched the Bloom Beyond Collective. With a small team of volunteers, Serhan collects flower arrangements – discarded from wedding receptions, galas, and other events – and distributes them to assisted living facilities and memory care centers across the Omaha metro.
Flowers, Serhan said, “are a natural form of beauty. They naturally make me feel happy, so, I think they can make other people happy. And it’s a really small act that can really make somebody’s day.”
The Seed of an Idea
Serhan, who was born in Lebanon, joined the Avenue Scholars program her junior year at Westside. Like many students at that age, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do for a career.
She met with her then-Career Coach, Ashley Knott (now the curriculum manager at Avenue Scholars) who encouraged her to consider a job as a CNA. With Knott’s help, Serhan received her CNA training through Fulton Homes Education Center and has been working in the role at Nebraska Medicine ever since.
“The work is deeply rewarding,” she said. “I go into each shift knowing that even small moments of presence or care can make someone feel less alone. Sometimes that’s what matters most.”
After graduation, Serhan received the Goodrich Scholarship from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and now attends the university as an undergraduate. She’s majoring in neuroscience with a minor in nonprofit management and hopes one day to become a physician assistant.
“She was such a leader in our program,” said Beth Leach, now the Career Coach at Westside who worked with Serhan her junior and senior years. “Always wanting to give back and feeling a deep sense of community and just care and compassion.”
Her work in the hospital, Serhan said, inspired the idea of the Bloom Beyond Collective. There, she could feel a different energy between the patients’ rooms that were completely undecorated and those that had something as simple as a small vase of flowers.
“I’ve always loved natural beauty,” Serhan said. “In the hospital, I saw how flowers could soften a space and make people feel seen. That sense of care shouldn’t be reserved for special occasions.”
An Effort in Bloom
Since starting Bloom Beyond, Serhan has distributed flowers to nine Omaha senior living facilities and memory care centers.
She partners with several area florists, who will notify her of upcoming weddings and events. If the hosts agree to donate the flowers, Serhan and a small group of volunteers pick them up the night of the event and, soon after, deliver them to their new homes in residents’ rooms and common spaces at the designated facility.
“The residents are always so, so happy. As soon as they see us walking through the door holding huge bouquets of flowers, their faces light up instantly, and you can just see the joy that they bring,” she said.
Balancing school, her job as a CNA, and her work collecting and delivering the arrangements can be challenging at times, Serhan said. But the creativity and sense of purpose the Bloom Beyond Collective gives her is worth the effort, and she plans to continue the collective as she moves forward on her career journey.
It’s a calling she never would’ve realized, she said, if not for her experience with Avenue Scholars. Her Career Coaches, she said, performed small acts of care at every step, helping her chart a course for her future and discover her sense of purpose.
“If I was never a CNA, I would’ve never gotten to experience how rewarding it is to care for people,” she said. “That small acts can transform someone’s day is definitely a message I got from Avenue Scholars.”
