Deloitte Counts Blooms for World Record

Former South African President Nelson Mandela is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. What better way is there for the public to show its admiration for the leader, than with a bouquet of flowers? A BIG bouquet of flowers.

A total of 33,332 individual flowers were assembled into the bouquet. Auditors from Deloitte & Touche devoted about 24 hours to counting the individual flowers and attested to the quantity [1], which is large enough to qualify the bouquet for the Guinness Book of Records. The bouquet, which was wrapped in plastic and tied with a giant pink bow, weighed in at nearly four tons.

South African radio station, 702 Talk Radio, organized the effort to collect the flowers for the ailing leader by requesting a donation of 10 rand (approximately $1) for each flower. An outpouring of generous donations above the requested amount resulted in a collection of nearly $90,000 for the 33,332 flowers. The money will go to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.