Features

Beverly business blooms for community

BEVERLY -- Life has many occasions, some happy, some sad, and giving flowers is one way to express the right sentiment on these occasions.

Where does one buy flowers? If you are in Beverly, Amy's Flower Shoppe is the place to go.

Amy's Flower Shoppe is located at 507 Fifth St. in Beverly and has been in operation for 48 years, according to owner Lora Whitten.

The store has had three owners. The original owner had a daughter named Amy and named the shop after her, Whitten said.

The main product of Amy's Flower Shoppe is flowers. The business also sells plant and artificial silk flowers, Whitten said.

If a customer comes into the shop and has an idea, they try to put together something that fits their idea.

'"We feel like that's pretty special. What comes out of here is very unique because it's our ideas," Whitten said.

Amy's Flower Shop provides flowers for customers for Valentines, Mothers Day, Christmas, homecomings and proms, funerals, weddings and more. They sell trees and ornaments in the store at Christmastime. When people come in for homecoming, they make what they ask for that day, she said.

Whitten said they deliver flowers to customers, too.

According to Amy's Flower Shoppe's website, they deliver to Beverly, Belpre, Marietta and McConnelsville. They also offer daily floral delivery to local funeral homes and hospitals.

They expanded into Parkersburg last year and did quite a few weddings in Parkersburg and Marietta, Whitten said.

Most customers are from all over. She even had a bride who grew up in the Caldwell area who was living in Colorado and she did her flowers for her wedding, Whitten said..

The shop has provided flowers for some area businesses.

Whitten said Amy's Flower Shoppe did the flower arrangements for Taste of Parkersburg and has done some things for Camden Clark.

"We've tried to build our name and tried to really get out there being a little hometime shop, that's good, we're excited about that," Whitten said.

Whitten has worked at Amy's Flower Shoppe off and on over the last 24 years. She worked for the original owner for the last few years she owned the shop and then worked for the next set of owners, she said.

She went to college and majored in business. She started working at a bank, and knew the two women who were the second owners of the shop. She knew they were exiting the business and looking for someone to sell it and asked them to call her first, Whitten said in describing how she became the owner.

She has owned the shop for 10 years now, and has four part-time employees that work for her. She hires more help during the holidays, she said.

Things have evolved and changed so much in the shop. It has always been in the same location, but it used to be smaller. The second set of owners bought the area next to it and made it the size it is today, according to Whitten.

Whitten loves the creativity of working in a flower shop. When she started working at the shop she loved it and the place became like home to her, she said.

"I could've went other places but this was too much like home," Whitten said.

Whitten's favorite part of the flower shop is the enjoyment people get from the designs and flowers they do. She likes to see the smiles on customers' faces, she said.

"One of my favorite parts before I became owner was delivering, because that's where you get to see people's reactions. You know, making people happy, that's really what we like to do and see. When the brides tell you how much they love the bouquets or how much they love the arrangements, that's gratification to me. That's probably my favorite part, knowing that my design work made somebody happy or these girls' design work," Whitten said.

Whitten said the shop involves everyone's creativity, not just hers. Everyone has different ideas and that is what makes the shop function. They all feed off of each other.

Maddi Scharff has worked part-time at Amy's Flower Shoppe for a little more than a year. She took a break from college and was looking for a part-time job and started working at the shop, she said.

"It was just something to do for fun and then I actually fell in love with it and I love the people that I work with," Scharff said.

She delivers flowers a lot to customers, and her favorite part is seeing people's faces and their reactions. She also likes getting to learn customer service and all kinds of different things working at the flower shop, she said.

Dawn McCutcheon has worked at Amy's Flower Shoppe for almost 20 years, including for the previous set of owners, she said. She likes working at the shop because there are usually more ups than downs, and because the shop is flexible, McCutcheon said.

"You get to be creative and (we) just enjoy each other's company, as well as just working with customers," McCutcheon said.

Her favorite part of working at the shop is being creative and the design work, she said.

Amy's Flower Shoppe is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday. The shop is closed on Sundays. To find out more information about products and prices, visit Amy's Flower Shoppe's website at https://www.amysflowershoppe.com/ or 740-984-2579.

Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com