Celebrating 15 years and Grand Opening of Kindhearted Floral

Kindhearted Home Care will celebrate 15 years of service to the community with a Grand Opening event next Thursday, June 26, from 4:30 to 7 p.m.
The celebration will combine an Open House with tours and information about all of the company’s services, including home care, adult daycare, their fitness center, children’s respite care, and the newly added floral business, Kindhearted Floral & Custom Creations.

Filling a community need
Earlier this year, Diane Goetsch, owner of Kindhearted Home Care, didn’t envision she would be the owner of a florist shop before the end of May. But after learning County Market in Merrill would no longer be carrying florals, she said she didn’t want to see Merrill lose yet another service.
“Back in the day, I worked at Brose’s,” Diane said. “So Brose’s closed two years ago.” When they closed, two of their remaining employees went to County Market, and the grocery store agreed to open a flower shop within the market and hired the two part-time to run it. But recently County Market decided to close that aspect of the business within the Merrill store.

That got Diane’s gears turning. She said the lobby area at Kindhearted Home Care had lots of space to spare that wasn’t being fully utilized, and she started imagining whether that could be converted into a florist shop, simply enhancing her existing business.
The key to making it work was Amy Krause. “Amy Krause has worked for me part-time in my home care business for eight years,” Diane said. “But years ago, Amy was the lead designer at Brose’s. So she’s the team lead. She’s leading this whole thing.”
In addition to having experience working at the former Brose’s Flower Shop in Merrill, Amy also owned her own flower shop when she lived in Missouri, Diane said.
Diane also hired Rose Schoepke and Berna Zastrow—the two who were working part-time doing the floral work at County Market—to come over to Kindhearted with the florist business.
The timeline was tight. County Market’s last day for the floral department was Thursday, May 8, and Kindhearted Floral opened the following Monday, May 12. They had two weeks to be up and running, and they did it, Diane said.
“I didn’t want that gap for the community to not have somewhere to go,” she said.

Full-service florist with personal touch
The new floral business addition, called Kindhearted Floral & Custom Creations LLC, is a full-service florist, offering flowers and arrangements for funerals and weddings, birthdays and anniversaries, special occasions, or no occasion at all. Live plants, flowering plants, succulents, fresh flower arrangements, grab-and-go fresh flower bouquets, and silk floral arrangements are all available, with delivery as an option.
Diane emphasized that Kindhearted Floral & Custom Creations will provide that same personal touch that has defined Kindhearted’s home care services for the past decade and a half. For instance, floral arrangements can be truly personalized. She provided an example of creating funeral flowers for a man who loved hunting and fishing all his life and how their floral department is adding elements that reflect those things in his casket spray.
Kindhearted Floral is easily accessible for customers, located at 120 S. Mill St. in Merrill. “You walk in the front door and it’s right there,” Diane said.

Unique gift line
The new shop will also be doing gift baskets, said Diane’s daughter, Sara Zastrow.
“We’re going to have a whole unique gift line here,” Diane said. “We’re getting more and more products in every single day.” She said they are focusing on adding items that Merrill residents can’t currently find at other businesses in the local area, particularly those from Wisconsin-based companies. They are unboxing things daily, so new items are being added to the shelves, and customers could stop in every day and find something new.
Diane and Sara said they are not trying to compete with the existing businesses in the downtown area. Rather, they want to complement the other existing businesses and offer things not currently available in downtown Merrill.
Since opening in mid-May, they’ve added a variety of items made in Wisconsin—like chocolates from Madison Chocolate Company and from a company in Spooner, and spices from Milwaukee’s Spice House—as well as 100% local honey.

They also added soaps and lotions, perfumes, beard oil, stepping stones, homemade cards, wall and metal art, tea towels, umbrellas, napkins, key chains, candy and pre-made candy baskets, and balloons. The shop also carries pottery from Oregon.
“We want to have something different,” Diane said. “And one thing that Merrill does not have is tea.”
So another new addition is Harney & Sons tea and scone mixes.
Diane and Sara also foresee adding earrings and other smaller gift items, including men’s gifts, picture frames, table runners, pillows, and other decorative items. Many of their items will be perfectly paired and ideal for creating custom gift baskets.
“Everything that we have ... if it’s not made in Wisconsin, it’s at least made in the USA,” Sara said.
“I guess my main thing that I want to relay to the community is that I didn’t want the community to lose a flower shop,” Diane said. “So that’s why I thought it was important to bring it here, but then also add a piece—gift sets and baskets that also can be delivered.”
Diane is also hoping the floral and gift shop will become a go-to stop for customers’ favorite things. “We want you to keep coming in to get the soap that you like from us or the perfume or whatever that favorite item is,” she said. So it’s not just about the flowers, but also an opportunity to pick up a few other things area residents might want or need.
“We are definitely excited about the flowers and making people happy, that kind of thing,” Diane said. “That’s fun—and being part of those special moments for people—but also being able to add that extra with gifts.”

Home care remains primary focus
While Kindhearted Floral is now the first thing most visitors to the business will see when they walk in the door, everything they’ve been doing for the last 15 years is still alive and well. Goetsch is now simply making better use of her existing lobby space and ensuring Merrill residents don’t lose a much-needed community service with the introduction of the floral business.

Diane said Kindhearted Home Care continues to be her primary focus. She wasn’t looking to start a new business, but just like with their health and fitness center, she wants to help make sure that the community doesn’t lose services. She said it’s important for Merrill-area residents to continue to have options.
Both Diane and Sara were already kept busy full-time running the other aspects of Kindhearted Home Care. That’s why it was so important that Amy could take the lead on the floral operation, Diane said.
“We are not closing our other companies,” Diane emphasized. “We still have our supportive home care and our health and fitness center and our adult daycare, and children’s respite.” Most importantly, she doesn’t want people to think the floral shop replaces anything she is already doing at Kindhearted.
That’s one more reason Diane combined the Grand Opening of Kindhearted Floral with the 15th anniversary celebration of Kindhearted Home Care—so the community realizes that business is alive and well and here to stay.
Diane is proud of the reputation she’s built for consistent, reliable, personal service over the last 15 years. Customers are going to see that same service with the floral shop, she said. “We’re going to be open; we’re here to serve your needs—just like we have with our home care business and our adult daycare and everything else that we’ve brought to this community for the last 15 years,” Diane said.

Expanded fitness center hours
The celebration will also mark expanded hours for Kindhearted’s health and fitness center, which will now be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. Not coincidentally, these are the same hours Kindhearted Floral is open.
The fitness center operates on a month-to-month basis with no contracts and a discount for three-month increments paid in advance.
“You only pay for the month you want to be here,” Diane said. She said this is great for snowbirds, beginners to working out, and others who don’t want a long-term commitment.
All of Kindhearted’s services are located in downtown Merrill at 120 S. Mill St. To speak with Diane or Sara about Kindhearted Home Care for a loved one, or for more information about any of their services, including speaking with a floral designer or to order flowers, call 715.218.3772.