Florodora in the news

Florodora on NBC 5 Chicago News, 11/3/2020

2020 has been a rough year for many small businesses. Many individuals, as well. While there are moments it’s tempting to say it’s been especially tough for Florodora, any time I feel that way, I immediately step back and count Florodora’s blessings, and my own.

We shut down on March 16th, due to the coronavirus, thinking we’d reopen in a couple of weeks. That didn’t happen, of course. At the time we had no online store, so no other way of selling all the spring merchandise we had already received. So we got to work on an online store, and just as we were about to launch it, and to reopen our doors as well, we were severely looted and vandalized, along with many other stores in Chicago and other cities. I’ll write more about that experience—with photos—in a later post.

But back to the blessings. I’ll list several: First, our wonderful customers, who sent us hundreds of messages of support and offers to help, both financially and with physical labor. We also had warm outreach from the city. We thankfully had financial assistance from a few government entities to help keep the bills paid while shut down. We had support from the management and staff of our home, the Monadnock Building. We had an insurance liaison at Nationwide who was responsive, understanding and very helpful with our claim. I’m also grateful for the support of our own staff members and former staff members, who were devastated but showed up to help when we needed them.

And another blessing came out of the blue. Shortly after the looting, I was contacted by Lisa Parker, of NBC 5 Chicago. I hope she doesn’t mind me revealing that she had been a customer of ours, although I can’t say I really knew her. But she was on our client list, and when I sent out an email in June, with photos of the looting and how we were responding, she said she was impressed by what I had written, and wanted to know if we’d be interested in having her follow us through the process of rebuilding and dealing with insurance.

Lisa, for those who don’t know, is a top notch consumer investigative reporter. If you have a dispute with a company, she’s the person to have on your side. So with us about to embark on our insurance journey, there was only one answer: Yes!

I can’t say whether our excellent support from Nationwide Insurance might have been influenced by Lisa’s reporting, but who cares? Either way, it was wonderful for us to have Lisa on our side. Not only was she empathetic about what had happened, she was fun to be around and keep in touch with throughout the summer, as the rebuilding progressed. She also understood and included my position—which shouldn’t be controversial, but apparently is, to some—that I’m 100% supportive of the protests, while also being 100% against looting and violence. TV news segments have to be edited quickly, and so much gets cut out, but Lisa and her editing partner Ronnie are excellent at distilling important points to make them truthful, concise and compelling. I hope you’ll agree.

We did three segments with Lisa: One soon after the looting, one as our remodeling was in progress (which also featured our volunteer event in Englewood), and one covering our reopening. The first seems to have already disappeared, but here are links to the other two, while they last:

August 12, 2020: https://www.nbcchicago.com/consumer/cautious-optimism-a-message-from-one-looted-chicago-business-to-others/2321540/

November 3, 2020: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/beloved-chicago-boutique-florodora-reopens/2362985/ (This one also features one of our favorite customers, Julie. Thanks, Julie!)

In closing, while I’d never wish to experience our 2020 chaos again, I feel fortunate that our clouds have had silver linings this year, including Lisa Parker, and also including many of you who are reading this. Thank you for being a part of our wild ride.