Etheline Jackson's face lit up, her eyes widened and she squealed "Oh!" when she saw what came with her meal that day.

Though she gets a hot lunch delivered to her door five days a week from the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Meals on Wheels program, it's not every day that bright, fresh flowers accompany them.

"It just gives me a lift," Jackson said. "It really does."

That's exactly what Marcia Graff had hoped for.

A few months ago, Graff began volunteering flowers from her garden in Hillsborough to go hand in hand with the meals delivered through the local Meals on Wheels.

She knew her neighbor, Jeanie Arnel, is director of the program that delivers meals to people in Chapel Hill, Carrboro and southern Orange County who are elderly, homebound, disabled or otherwise in need.

And Graff said a light bulb just went off in her head one day when she bumped into Arnel out and about town. So they chatted about how Graff could help the cause.

She had been giving her flowers to friends, neighbors and family. But since the 60-year-old retired from her job at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in April, she's had more time to devote to the pastime, and that meant more flowers grew in her garden.

"I started thinking, 'How can I give flowers to other people?' " said Graff, who has gardened for the past three years. "Flowers are just such a special thing. It automatically lights you up!"

She and Arnel began collecting glass vases and bottles from recycling bins and area thrift shops. Some thrift shops even donated the supplies.

Now, for efficiency's sake, Graff has started using the clear, plastic to-go cups with snap-on lids punctured with straw holes. It takes a burden off the Meals on Wheels volunteers, Graff said, so they don't have to collect the glass containers to bring back to her, and she won't have to clean them.

Plus, with the lids, the containers are now spill-proof when traveling with the meals in volunteers' cars.

From bright blue morning glories and orange poppies to white irises and pink cleomes, Graff's flowers come together to create vibrant bouquets for those, she says, whose days may need a bit of a "lift."

On Tuesday morning, when volunteer Jack Slavin delivered Jackson's meal to her door, she immediately noticed the flowers.

"There's something about flowers," said the 76-year-old, and it brought to mind the modern dating ritual where people give bouquets to the people they like. "It used to be just a box of candy. Now, people [bring] flowers on dates and candy!"

"When you get shut in like this -- I call it being 'shut in' -- you really don't get to plant your own garden," Jackson said. Her apartment complex provides small plots for its residents to plant flowers, fruit or vegetables, but it's not the same, she said.

Graff calls her contribution to Meals on Wheels "retirement fun."

"It's the first time I can think of that I've had fun, you know, for me," she said.

Once a week, Graff's friend Charlotte Schur, who is also retired, drops by and helps her arrange the flowers into bouquets.

"We're sitting there, chatting," Graff said. "It's kind of a social, fun thing."

On average, Graff and Schur will arrange about 32 bouquets per week, and the local Meals on Wheels program currently delivers about 55 to 60 meals per day.

The volunteers deliver the hot lunches Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. to houses, apartments and three retirement apartments in the area.

Recipients get a quart of milk at the beginning of the week, along with meat and vegetables, a roll or bread and half a pint of juice every day. They'll sometimes get desserts volunteers provide, and those who are not able to have sweets will get fruit instead.

This year is the local program's 30th anniversary.

On a recent Tuesday morning, Graff drove her flowers over to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Meals on Wheels base at the Binkley Memorial Baptist Church and let the volunteers split the bouquets among themselves.

"If it helps [the recipients] get through the day," Graff said, "and [the flowers] say: 'You're not forgotten,' then I'm glad I can do that."