By Tanya Steele
The power of a digital story has skyrocketed the struggles of a Montrose business into the social media spotlight, as an influencer spent time connecting with the community and touched the hearts of millions of people worldwide.
A little kindness can go a long way and a local florist and nursing home had their day sprinkled with a surprise dose of generosity from a social media influencer last week.
Influencer Samuel Weidenhofer has seven million followers on TikTok and walked into the Little Flower Shoppe in Montrose, surprising owner Chloe with a request for one thousand roses.
“I could do 50 or 100,” said Chloe.
“What it’s for?” she said in the viral reel, which has since been viewed 1.8 million times on TikTok.
Samuel explained on the video that it was for local nursing home residents and Chloe immediately offered to do the roses at cost. Samuel then handed over one thousand dollars in cash – stunning the local Montrose shop owner.
“I immediately just offered to do them at cost, because that’s just what we do, that’s just one of our core values. “ said Chloe.
The duo then went along to the local Donwood Community Aged Care home in Croydon and handed out flowers to the residents there.
Chief Executive Officer Natasha Wilkinson said it was a welcome surprise when the two came to the nursing home, along with some of Chloe’s staff and said they would like to give a rose to all of our residents.
“ We were like, they will love this — anything special like that is just amazing,” she said.
Talking with the residents and Chloe, Samuel spent a number of hours chatting with people, giving out roses and hearing about Chloe’s shop.
“You don’t see much in the clip but he spent a long time with us,” said Chloe.
“I think people can sometimes think kindness like this is for that person’s benefit – but it’s just not, this world needs to have more kindness,” said Natasha.
“It needs to have more people coming around and taking time just to be with people and enjoy seeing someone get a smile on their face – it’s very infectious,” she said.
After the surprise visit, the influencer posted the video online and things began to pick up from there.
Choe said she is a little older than some of her staff and didn’t immediately understand the ramifications of going viral in this way.
“I thought, maybe this will generate some business and everything like that. But I just genuinely had no idea where it would spiral from there.”
Over the next few days, the post took off on social media and Chloe said her business socials were flooded with messages of support.
“It just had gone crazy, and then it went viral, which my very cool employees explained to me was a very big deal,” she said.
The TikTok star has also begun a GoFundMe page to support the business and it has already raised over 13 thousand dollars in a number of days.
The flower shop has been a florist location in Montrose for over 40 years and Chloe said it’s a landmark in Montrose.
“It’s had so many amazing florists in it over those years,” she said.
After a year of roadworks in the area recently finished Chloe said that her shop’s struggles have not been the only ones and she wants to utilize her new found platform to highlight the way businesses have been struggling in the area.
“It’s been all we have been consumed with for this whole year,” she said.
“It’s beautiful that I’m getting this GoFundMe. It will give me a cash injection into my business. That means I can give it another shot. But it’s really important to me that everybody knows that it’s not just us – everybody in Montrose, they’re all struggling.”
