He expresses love for his daughter through his micro company and despite the adversity due to the arrival of COVID-19, he does not let himself win
The pandemic forced Mireya Romero to reinvent herself for her mental health and to avoid the collapse of her MySpecial Little Flower business.
Three and a half years ago this woman decided to create a micro company for her daughter Cristy, with the intention of preparing her for adult life and helping her develop more skills.
"Cristy is 16 years old and Down syndrome, so we started to see that she was growing … It was thinking about her future that we wanted to do something that incorporated her to work on her social skills and we learned what her interests were," explains the mother, who He calls his daughter 'my special little flower' – hence the name of the business.
"She was the inspiration for MySpecial Little Flower. More than anything, thinking about his vocational life and independent abilities. ”
Mireya's venture is based on the colorful creation of paper flowers to decorate walls or party spaces, such as quinceañeras, weddings or birthdays.
However, everything is focused on supporting the development of your daughter and other people with challenges.
"When the idea of doing a small business came along, we wanted something that would allow us to learn more about Cristy to advocate for her in the School District, in the care systems, or at the regional center," says Mireya, who created the logo for her business inspired by Down syndrome colors — blue and yellow.
‘My source of creativity comes from necessity’
This family's plans took an unexpected turn in March, with the arrival of COVID-19. They began to cancel events, Mireya had to suspend her face-to-face classes, where she taught how to make paper flowers. Business seemed to be going downhill.
"As a small business, just this year we started to have large contracts and suddenly a week before the 'Stay at Home' order due to the pandemic, we started to cancel everything."
“We already had everything invested in the material and it was very difficult because we have worked so hard for this business and suddenly I saw it decline,” says the 34-year-old woman resident of the city of Downey.
Amidst the uncertainty, but with great faith, Mireya understood that it was time to reinvent her micro business. That's how he went from making paper flowers to specializing in creating beautiful balloon arrangements that steal hundreds of hearts on social media.
"I said: 'I am going to start creating because that is my way of taking care of myself' and I started to make the arrangements and publish them on my profile, I used all the material that I had and kept doing it until a person asked me if I could make an arrangement" , remembers Mireya, who was born in Los Angeles, but has Salvadoran and Mexican blood in her veins.
From that moment, his business rebounded and today he receives numerous daily orders to decorate the celebrations of his clients, to whom he offers different price and size options; in addition to the possibility of picking up your orders or receiving them at your home.
"These past few weeks we have been blessed with huge orders for balloon arrangements and for someone who did not specialize in this I feel that it is God who is telling me that what I am doing is fine," he says.
Mother heroine
Mireya, who also works in a counseling agency as a provider of mental health services as ‘Padre de Apoyo’, acknowledges that it has not been easy to face COVID-19 as the mother of a young woman with special needs.
"When the virus happened it was very difficult, because our daughter has Down syndrome and diabetes, but when I realized that if something happened to me, she would be vulnerable, that made me very afraid," she confesses.
"For the first time in the pandemic I realized that I am also vulnerable and that I don't always have to be strong, so I started to experience panic attacks," explains Mireya, who says that she managed to channel those feelings thanks to the support of her partner, César Romero.
"My husband is an extremely great source of support, he took the primary role in the house and at night we prayed and that gave me a lot of peace," she says full of conviction.
Socially, she managed to find the balance of her life by teaching her free paper flower classes online. On the one hand, it helps others to keep busy and on the other, it shares its knowledge with its community.
"Keeping busy has always been my way of handling my difficulties, but during this pandemic I learned that keeping my mind busy is my way of taking care of myself."
Explaining to her daughter about the situation was not easy either, but she found a way to make her understand the changes they had to make in her routine to stay healthy.
"We had to explain to her that we couldn't go out with her, suddenly no longer school, no church community, no ballet, no nothing … The only way we could explain it to her was by saying: 'It is dirty outside and they are cleaning', So little by little we explained to him that there is a virus outside and that they are cleaning his school, the church and that we are staying in our houses to take care of ourselves ”.
The pandemic has brought many teachings on self-improvement to the home of Mireya and above all it has given her the tools to turn the storm into opportunities, which she recreates in striking and colorful arrangements of balloons that bring her energy and happiness to other homes.
"With the pandemic balloon arrangements arose, which is something we did not do, now with the pandemic it is all we are doing," he concludes.
