International Women's Day takes place on the same day every year 8th March, this years theme is 'Inspire Inclusion' to focus collectively on forging a more inclusive world for women.  

The first IWD started in 1911 and was marked by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland as a strategy to promote equal rights including women's suffrage. The United Nations started celebrating IWD in 1975 which was also the International women's year.

Sunflower Spalding Cash & Carry is based in the market town of Spalding, a large industrial town many Eastern Europeans now call home having moved to Spalding to work within the community. We now have several Eastern European communities from countries such as Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Russia and these communities celebrate IWD with the women in their lives, not such a well known event in the UK calendar but hopefully this will be something for the future.

To mark the beginning of spring the flower often gifted are tulips and roses, although the gift of a flower of any kind is given with so much thought.

Let us all join together on the 8th March to raise the awareness of such an important day.