Forest Bootery to take Lead: One Year of Local Treasures
FOREST BOOTERY TO TAKE LEAD: ONE YEAR OF LOCAL TREASURES
After 2019 celebrating their 70th anniversary Forest Bootery embarks on a one year commitment of supporting Local, Being Local and Loving Local. With strong community heritage and bonds they plan to use Forest Bootery's brick and mortar footprint to host this vision.
They struggled with how to achieve this goal:
"Our communities are rich in businesses and services that don't have a prime location. I want to call attention to these best kept secrets that make our communities such a wonderfully unique place to live, eat and shop. Diverse selection gives customers choices making it even easier for everyone to keep their support local. "
With plenty of store frontage the idea blossomed to let a different small business or service have one month visibility in their downtown locations. The leads come from customers, friends or social media on businesses or services that will get this rare opportunity to have their message seen.
"It has been so much fun reaching out and making the connections. I already think this may be a never ending list" says Garrison.
FEBRUARY: FLORIST
Valentine's or Galantine's love is in the air this month. Not only do we have wonderful florist shops in our downtowns but we also have talented creative resources off the beaten path.
LAKE FOREST: FLOWERS BY KATIE FORD
Back in 2016, if someone were to tell me that I would have my own floral business, I'd have laughed and told them they were crazy. Neither I (nor my husband, Tom) would have ever thought I had a creative bone in my body. Frankly, I found drawing a stick figure to be challenging and I'm not exaggerating.
Fast forward to February 2020, and my flower business, Flowers By Katie Ford (STILL seems strange saying that!) is blooming and I've moved into a great new store front in Lake Bluff. I have three incredible women working with me, and we have expanded greatly, doing weddings and events on top of the one off orders we receive each day.
What one might call LUCKY, I call God's hand. I truly believe that God called me to do his work through flowers. I believe flowers bring joy to others and bring happiness during difficult times.
Let's go back a few years and I'll tell you why I think God and fate played their cards for me to be where I stand today.
In the summer of 2014, literally at the end of a fantastic family vacation out east, I was getting my nails done of all things and out of nowhere, this cloud of darkness come over me, and when I say it came over me, it did and with a vengeance. It was a really dark time- out of the blue- scary and the symptoms didn't leave for weeks, and truly scared the heck out of me. In short, I'd had a breakdown, and it was a life changer.
After getting stabilized with medicine and a lot of help, I worked really hard to understand the causes of this breakdown, and ultimately found the definition of what I had is that of mental illness, and what I decided to do then and there was to ACCEPT I had a illness, and to WORK at understanding it and hopefully, by UNDERSTANDING that I had this problem, I would ACCEPT it, which I think was the key to moving forward.
Anyway, upon understanding and ACCEPTING this illness, I worked to put the pieces of my life back together (I had a husband and four children at this time), and during my recovery, I found peace in, of all things, making floral arrangements. Where this came from, I have TRULY have no idea, but as I healed and worked to understand my illness and the causes, I became enchanted with flowers and the happiness they brought me. I believe that combination of understanding my limits, slowing my life down, and LEARNING to practice self care, along with prayer and my faith in God, showed me the way to blooms.
That's my story and the journey continues with new and wonderful twists and turns along the way. I thank God for this gift and the AMAZING community of people who have supported me both personally as well as the business I am so proud of, Flowers by Katie Ford.