Victory Bouquets Change Lives
Margitta Schulz was a little frustrated as she listened to a 2010 Commerce Centre orientation session for prospective suppliers. What they were suggesting seemed impossible.
She was one of 50 florists interested in bidding on a prize contract for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) – 1,700 victory bouquets to be presented to winning athletes during the Victory Ceremonies.
“The VANOC speaker was suggesting that we more or less bring people off the street to make these bouquets,” recalled the owner of Margitta’s Flower Boutique at Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. “I thought: ‘What are they expecting from us? Florists don’t just walk off the street and do a good job. They need training.’”
But, as Schulz discovered, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Small Business and Social Enterprise Partnership
VANOC and the 2010 Commerce Centre encouraged the businesses to partner with non-profit organizations to create opportunities for people who might not otherwise benefit from the Games — a criterion of VANOC’s Buy Smart purchasing program.
Through the orientation session, Schulz met June Strandberg — and a dynamic partnership was born.
Strandberg is the executive director of Just Beginnings Non-Profit Society, a flower shop and floral design school for women with barriers to employment. Many of the students are recovering from addiction, leaving prison, exiting the sex trade or are victims of violence.
“When I saw June’s facility,” said Schulz, whose own flower boutique is tiny, “I thought, ‘Wow, this it was just perfect.’”
The two women, with 100 years of floral design experience between them, combined forces and won the bid.
Strandberg will provide the production space and team of program graduates, as well as supporting senior designers. Schulz will contribute the business expertise to oversee the contracts and bill payments.
Sustainability Criteria for Flowers
Another challenge the partnership faced was satisfying VANOC’s sustainability criteria for the flowers: certified organically grown, non-invasive and native to Canada. This was a problem. “Just about everything in the bouquet is grown here in the summer,” explained Schulz. “But not in February.” As well the bouquets had to meet the design and durability expectations of VANOC’s design team.
After three months of design discussions with VANOC, and extensive research, the group settled on locally grown greenhouse flowers and greens imported from sustainable farms in Ecuador. The air transportation associated with the imported flowers will be offset as part of VANOC’s carbon management program. And even the packaging and wrapping around the bouquets are sourced according to sustainability principals.
Flower Power Heals
Strandberg, who for 14 years taught floral design in a women’s prison, knows the universal healing power of flowers. “The girl who once stood on the corner to make money for drugs, doesn’t have to do that anymore,” she said about a Just Beginnings student. “Now she works part-time in a flower shop and she has her children back.”
She is one of the women who will create bouquets for the Olympic and Paralympic medal winners. “This is so far from where they’ve been,” said Strandberg. “Who would think they would end up so close to the podium?”
