TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — When Molly Barrett was first approached about running the long-standing flower shop at 18th and Poplar Streets in Terre Haute, she was not completely sold.
“I am not a green thumb,” Barrett said, laughing.
But Barrett is a business-savvy woman, and said she and her husband, Greg, had always wanted to own their own business.
“We’d been talking about that and we got business plans, and we looked at buildings and we’d done all those things before,” Barrett said. “But we could never just bring ourselves to pull the trigger.”
After a lot of encouragement, and some number-crunching, the decision was made to take over the flower shop … at least for two years.
“If we found after two years, I needed to go back, I said ‘okay then I’ll go back into corporate world, not sell my suits’, I didn’t get rid of anything like that just in case I needed them again,” Barrett said. “I have since given them all away because I don’t need them anymore.”
That’s because the seeds of entrepreneurship planted at what is now Maggie & Moe’s Poplar Flowers and Decor, named after Molly’s two daughters, have blossomed into a city-wide venture.
The Barretts now own not only the original flower shop, but a Maggie & Moe’s coffee shop at Regional Hospital, and another at Sycamore Farm on the same property as the Red Barn.
“We had always said ‘someone needs to fix that barn up, because it would be stunning,'” Barrett said, referencing conversations from when the Barretts moved back to Terre Haute after a couple of years living in another area. “So, over the years, as we’d been attending events, we continued to develop our love for that property.”
Love for the property, and its use as a location for some of life’s big moments, which Barrett said she loves to play a part in.
“Whether we’re providing flowers for a wedding, or on the other scheme of life, the funeral work we’re able to do for them, to actually hosting those events, we like to just help people through their journeys,” Barrett said.
Molly’s own journey has been filled with both celebration and grief, as well. In 2016, she lost her son Patrick at the age of 19 to cancer; it had been his second battle.
The Barretts quickly turned their grief into philanthrophy, starting the P.S. We Love You fund to benefit Riley Hospital for Children. While Barrett said Patrick was a private person, she knows he would support the choice of cause.
“He (Patrick) wanted to be an oncologist,” Barrett said. “After he’d gone through his first battle with Ewing’s Sarcoma, he really had decided that that was the avenue that he wanted to take, that he thought he could help kids by explaining his story. So, if we can continue to live that dream for him, that’s why we wanted to do that.”
P.S. We Love You’s annual Tackle Childhood Cancer campaign has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Riley. Barrett said that the movement her family has created in Patrick’s honor, along with her business ventures, could not be accomplished without the support of her loved ones.
“Having that family network, but also a friend network here that’s been able to support us in all of our journeys has been amazing,” Barrett said.
For more information on P.S. We Love You, visit the organization’s website here.
