There is a new flower shop opening in town just off the square in St. John behind Equity Bank. The Petal Shop will be aiming for a soft opening on July 31st and will have everything from homemade gifts, fresh flower arrangements, candy bouquets, and plants. The family behind the opening of the shop are the Truitt’s who are also the owners of Kansas Pest Inc. Jarrin Truitt is known by many through the Pest control business. But his wife, Kimberly, will soon be in charge of the flower shop. Keith Van Doren and Darla Stone were instrumental in helping the Truitt’s get their building. Kim is originally from Medicine Lodge and has lived in St. John for nearly five years following Jarrin who’s lived in here since 2005. The Truitt’s also have two boys Dylan and Jett who you’ll probably see hanging around The Petal Shop with Kimberly.
Kimberly loves doing scrapbooking, journaling, photography and started focusing on crafting in 2020 right as Covid was starting and needed an outlet while being a stay-at-home mom with a one-year-old. She first got into doing art projects when she joined Facebook groups that had cute inexpensive ideas. Ideas like the pizza pan wreaths that are featured on early posts on her Facebook page. In Medicine Lodge Kimberly arranged several community fund raisers and worked with the Chamber of Commerce through social media campaigns and Peace Treaty Pageants. Since moving to St. John, she’s been a stay-at-home mom. Now that her boys are bigger, this is the right time to start The Petal Shop.
Kimberly had been thinking about opening a small craft/gift shop in St. John for the past 5 years but was encouraged by Jarrin to dive into it after seeing the need for a flower shop in the community. Kimberly says, “Jarrin’s persistence and faith in me probably was the driver. But when we started to investigate what we needed to do, everything has come together like it’s meant to happen.” They’ve also received lots of encouragement from the community once they announced they planned to open.
The Petal Shop will have delivery eventually for the entire county but at the start it will just be Kimberly by herself running the shop. Eventually they will be able to provide full-service delivery to the entire county. For now you can do pickup at their shop or they can deliver within St. John area.
The Petal Shop logo was inspired by Kimberly’s Grandma Violet’s fabric paint design on a pillow case.
Follow The Petal Shop and make orders on Facebook or [email protected].
