Katherine Brozowski’s father bought her a car, then told her that she needed to take care of it, get insurance and buy her own gas. This meant that she needed to work. In looking for a job, Brozowski said that her father gave her the best advice she has ever received.
“Do something you enjoy. You don’t need to worry about the money and if you don’t like it, no amount of money will matter. You’re young so go find something you enjoy and do that,” he told her.
Katherine Brozowski’s father bought her a car, then told her that she needed to take care of it, get insurance and buy her own gas. This meant that she needed to work. In looking for a job, Brozowski said that her father gave her the best advice she has ever received.
“Do something you enjoy. You don’t need to worry about the money and if you don’t like it, no amount of money will matter. You’re young so go find something you enjoy and do that,” he told her.
Brozowski was in the horticulture program at El Capitan High School at the time and a small portion of that was plant science. She fell in love with the floral design aspect of it.
“After my dad’s advice, I remember being in my room, opening up the phonebook and calling every single florist in all of San Diego and only one person gave me an interview,” she said. “And that was David Daoud, here at Wild Orchid Florist. We sat down and I told him I was going to work in the Bellagio someday, do flowers for famous people and that it was what I wanted to do with my life. So he said he would train me and give me a chance.”
Both of her grandmothers on both sides were artists. So she grew up painting and her mother and father were into plants, so they always had beautiful gardens. She was always gravitated towards it. Being young she wished there was a career that included the arts and the crafts. She knew she would be really good at it.
Brozowski walked through the doors of Wild Orchid Florist for the first time at 16-years-old.
She worked with Daoud for a number of years and he became family. She said he was like a dad, sent her to school in Los Angeles to work with Phil Rolludo (School of Floral Design and Shop Management). He encouraged her to push herself into the design world and enter competitions. So she competed in the Del Mar Fair competitions and won two first place awards at Art Alive.
“After working with him for a number of years I decided it was time for me to go and learn the industry,” she said. “So I went and worked for big shops, little shops, production shops all over San Diego because I knew I was going to have my own business some day. I wanted to see who was doing what and how they were doing it. Eventually, I got busy enough to work out of my house just doing weddings and events. I did that for three years while I worked for an art company where I travelled and did art at the same time. So if I wasn’t painting, I was playing with flowers. I felt so lucky. It was an amazing time in my life.”
She said Daoud and her stayed friends through the years. He helped her when she needed it and she would help him when he needed it. But she said she would never forget the phone call that would change her life into a new era in the floral design industry.
“I was doing an event at the Convention Center and he said, ‘we need to have lunch. I want to retire,’” she said. “I came in and got reacquainted with his accounts, and since he had some of these accounts for 25 years, we didn’t want him to be missed. So I took over, brought in my wedding and events to his already standing orders and he retired Aug. 1.”
Brozowski said she is lucky I have strength in creativity and is passionate about it. She absolutely loves what she does from her customers to the many challenges this business brings to her every day.
“Someone comes in on Friday at four o’clock and needs a $200 arrangement delivered, I just say, ‘Let’s see what I can do,’ and pulling it off, it’s awesome,” she said. “It’s so fun, even with all the challenges. Weddings are a lot of work but they are so rewarding at the end of the day when you see how much love is put into this one event and you get to be the decorations and you just made this bride cry because she walks in and you just made all of her floral dreams come true.”
Now that she is owner of this 26-year-old business she said she has many other roles and is passing the same chance to another young apprentice, training her to be the artist.
“It is so rewarding to be in the position to take someone that has the passion and give them the knowledge and confidence to become a great designer,” she said. “There are so many aspects of this business that I absolutely love. She loves it as much as I do. We get excited about sticks. It was David’s baby, he started it on his own and for him to pass it on to me I know how proud he already is and is going to be to see his passion and love for his baby and what I’m going to do with it. I’m going to take this place to the next level.”
“I love what I do,” she said. Many times she will deliver herself to see the reaction that she gets from people. She said making the arrangements is a personal thing and she gets to be creative.
“But when I get to see how it makes the people feel it’s more than wonderful. We are a luxury. You don’t need us so you have to want us. So we want to be great,” she said.
Remember Me
Brozowski and her family were out delivering flowers at an assisted living home. She had given this man flowers. He was in his bed and they said, “These are for you. Please enjoy.” He said thank you and then a bit later they were on the other side of the building and saw him in his wheelchair with the flowers between his legs. Brozowski asked, “Where are you going sir?”
He said, “My wife is in this home and I haven’t been able to go get her flowers in years. I’m taking them to my wife.”
This was the beginning of her non-profit (501c3) organization that she began in 2004 after her grandmother began living in an assisted living home in El Cajon. She began realizing the truths of living in an assisted living home and realized how important flowers could be to those that live in them. After her grandmother passed, the family had the idea of sending all of the nurses and doctors flowers after all the wonderful support they gave her grandmother and the family.
“They really worked with the families and you need a lot of support to go through that with someone you love,” she said. “Then we said, ‘No, we are going to send all the residents, the doctors, nurses, everyone in the home will get flowers.’ So my father and me raised some money and I got some floral friends together and we made around 200 arrangements. My family and me personally delivered each arrangement to every single person. After doing that once, I knew it was something I was going to do the rest of my life.”
Since then, Remember Me has done things for the Braille Institute, where she did a sense workshop. Brozowski always encourages her brides, if they do not have other plans for the flowers, to get a tax deductable receipt and she will pick up the flowers after the event and repurpose them. Remember Me now have a number of people that it works with in the community. The Grossmont Cancer Center, women’s shelters, chemotherapy centers and many of the assisted living homes in town.
“And we don’t just go in with flowers, we bring babies, and sometimes a service dog,” she said. “Once you do that once, you can’t have a bad day, bad week or month. Things that we might have thought important or unfortunate—they’re not. The little things are little. Be grateful.”
Brozowski said Remember Me is probably one of the only non-profits that does not need people’s money.
“If you have an event, please use Wild Orchid because we will then use Remember me to repurpose the flowers,” she said. “That’s how you can get involved. We have taken donations in the past but we are not out for your money and that is not why we do it. It is something I will do for the rest of my life because I’ll never retire from being an artist. I don’t see myself selling this shop in 20 years.”
Wild Orchid Florist is located at 904 E. Washington Avenue in El Cajon. It is rated No. 1 on Yelp for flowers in El Cajon. To find out more about Wild Orchid Florist visit www.wildorchidflorstandevents.com, and follow it on Facebook and Instagram.
For more information about Remember Me, visit www.remembermenonprofit.com.
