For more than 40 years, her handiwork has been prominently displayed at weddings and funerals, bridal shows and baby showers, proms and parties and more.
Carol Ruffin, owner of Blossoms Florist, has devoted her life to brightening and beautifying countless events, occasions and spaces.
“At age 66, I don’t have 40 more years,” she says, sitting in her shop in Reading. She is eager to share her knowledge with younger people. And as one of only three Black florists locally with brick-and-mortar shops, she wants to see more Black professionals in the floral design field.
“I want to plant that seed.”
That seed is taking root thanks to grants Carol received from United Way of Greater Cincinnati’s Black Empowerment Works (BEW). It invests in Black-led, grassroots ideas and programs that might not qualify for, or may traditionally have been left out of, other grant programs.
The BEW grants make it possible for Carol to offer and lead separate classes for adults and for students in grades 9 to 12. She’s able to share a wealth of information she did not have when she was a budding floral designer.
In 1978, she was working at a cosmetics company and planning her wedding on a shoestring budget. To save money, she created her own floral arrangements. They were so beautiful, friends asked her to do their weddings and parties.
One of her coworkers, Vivian Green, also was impressed. She became more than a friend; she became a surrogate mom after the death of Carol’s mother. Vivian offered to pay the fees so Carol could enroll in floral design classes. “If she hadn’t done that,” Carol says, “who knows what I’d be doing.”
Green made the offer on one condition: that Carol and her husband, Chuck, stay married for at least one year.
This year they celebrated their 46th anniversary.
After gaining valuable volunteer experience alongside a florist, Carol worked for five years in a floral shop. Her goal, though, was to open her own business.
She started it in her garage, which Chuck painted and carpeted. One of the couple’s two daughters, Nadia, gave the business its name, Blossoms Florist. In 1990, it moved into a storefront at Kennedy Avenue and Montgomery Road in Kennedy Heights. Since 2013, it has operated out of space on Reading Road in Reading.
Of her many career highlights, Carol says two stand out. In 2021, she was selected for the African American Chamber of Commerce Hall of Fame. And in 2008, she was hired to create floral arrangements for the weeklong NAACP national convention in Cincinnati. It was a massive undertaking requiring more than 700 arrangements.
She did it with the support of Chuck, who retired 10 years ago from the Cincinnati office of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. He has always been heavily involved in Blossoms. Daughters Nici and Nadia, who were Blossoms’ first employees, chose to work in other fields.
Now, in the autumn of her career, Carol is motivated to impart what she has learned. “I would love to see somebody do what I have done, and more. Somebody who looks like me.” Black professionals, she notes, are underrepresented in the U.S. florist industry, which had revenues of $9 billion in 2022.
And so, with the help of Black Empowerment Works, Carol pays it forward. Not just for the benefit of one person, like her dear friend Vivian did many years ago. Carol does it for Cincinnati’s Black community. And she does it for everyone enrolled in her classes.
“I’m trying to plant a seed in them,” Carol says, “and each week, make it grow.”
This story is part of a five-part series by United Way of Greater Cincinnati about Carol Ruffin, the owner of Blossoms Florist.
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This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 12, 2024.