Minority owned florist shop opens in Shelby
Janie Williams has been creating floral arrangements for 15 years and recently, she opened a business in her hometown.
Williams Florist, located at 701 Suttle St., Shelby, is the only black owned florist in town and Williams’ second location. She also operates a shop in Charlotte.
The shop, located in the recently renovated strip mall on Suttle Street, is fragrant with the scent of fresh cut blooms, and Williams said they are up and running as of last week.
Williams is originally from Shelby and wanted to bring her craft to the city where she grew up.
She said as a child, she would do crafts and flower arranging with her mother, and the two always enjoyed getting creative.
About 16 years ago, she felt she was being led to do some other kind of work and prayed about it. At the time, she was a supervisor in a customer service job and although she enjoyed her job, she felt she was meant to do something else. After 11 years in customer service, she came home and told her husband the Lord was moving her to do something else.
“He said, ‘What does that mean?’” she recalled.
She felt she needed to work with her hands and said she was either going to start a cleaning service or a floral business.
“My husband said, ‘Why clean a house when you can make it beautiful?’” she said.
After she left her job, she started a nonprofit, but a mentor, who she calls her angel, walked her through the steps of creating a for-profit business, and Williams Florist was opened in Charlotte in 2008, which she still owns and operates.
Williams said she was told there were no Black florists in Shelby, and it was a good opportunity to fill that void and service the funeral homes in the area.
“I just think the timing is right,” Williams said.
She said they are a full-service shop and offer arrangements for holidays, sympathy, get well, weddings and snack and fruit baskets as well as fulfilling orders for 1-800 Flowers.
The shop opened earlier this month and so far, the response has been good.
Williams has not only carried on her mother’s legacy of creating beautiful things with her hands, but she loves the work and gets lost in it. She’ll lose track of time and before she knows it, a whole day will pass by in a flash.
She loves the peacefulness of floral arranging and being surrounded by beautiful things.
Last week, she had a walk-in customer who purchased a bouquet for her mother.
She said the woman came in later and told them how much she enjoyed the flowers.
“It’s a passion. It’s so much more than a business. It’s wonderful you get paid doing what you enjoy,” Williams said. “You can bless people with flowers.”
Williams Florist can be found on Facebook, Instagram and on their website www.williamsfloristofcharlotte.net.
Reporter Rebecca Sitzes can be reached at rsitzes@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Shelby Star: Minority owned florist shop opens in Shelby
