Making Good Season 6 Episode 7 Recap: Southside Blooms

Kirby heads to Chicago, Illinois to join farm-to-vase florist, Southside Blooms.

Providing youth in the area employment opportunities and empowerment, Southside Blooms works to develop vacant lots throughout the South and West sides of Chicago, and produce high-end floral designs. 

Giving the youth in the area experiences and lessons they may otherwise never have, each flower purchased through Southside Blooms creates opportunity.  

Kirby meets with founders Quilen and Hannah Blackwell at the Englewood shop in hopes of blossoming into a florist. 

As the Southside Blooms team prepares for their biggest event to date, a wedding at Chicago’s iconic Field Museum, they’ll need all the help they can get. Passing his skills test, Kirby is honored to join the team during a historic time for the organization. 

“Englewood is in the heart of the Southside of Chicago, it’s one of the more violent and dangerous neighborhoods,” Quilen says. “We’re here because we’re trying to change that around.”

After completing ministry school in 2011, Quilen came to Englewood to tutor and volunteer after realizing he had a choice: continue to live the comfortable life he was living, or use his life to help those in need. 

“That’s what really gave me heart for wanting to dedicate my life to Englewood and the inner city at large,” he says. 

“The thing I love most is just being able to give jobs to youth,” adds Hannah. Southside Blooms works with youth between the ages of 16-25, the age group that has the most statistics working against them. “It’s really a way for us to do more than just flowers, but actually show what our youth are capable of, and change the narrative of Southside youth.”

After Hannah gives Kirby a quick demo on how to process stems, he’s challenged to put together a centerpiece in just a few minutes, a critical skill as they’ll need a huge amount of centerpieces for the wedding. With the clock ticking, Kirby puts together his centerpiece well enough to give Quilen and Hannah faith they’ll be able to work with his skillset. 

Kirby meets the youth he’ll be working alongside with, including team leads Armani and Rashod. As the top youth florists at the shop, Armani and Rashod have each earned their purple apron, a badge of honor given to youth in the program who’ve excelled in both training and leadership. 

Kirby helps Armani with the bridal bouquet design, the most important part of any wedding they do. 

“It's always nice when you go to the weddings and see the bride's photos and stuff,” Armani tells Kirby proudly. “Like ‘I made that.’” 

“I knew flower shops existed before working here, but I didn’t realize I would enjoy it this much,” Armani continues. “Southside Blooms has really offered and opened me to a lot of opportunities I never really thought that it would be here in Englewood for me.” 

As they complete the stunning bouquet, Kirby discovers he does have a knack for flower arrangement after all. 

Next, Kirby joins Rashod, who has been with Southside Blooms for nearly two years, to make bud vases. After starting to work for Southside Blooms through his high school, his hard work earned him a job offer, and eventually a promotion to team leader.

“People treat me like family here,” he tells Kirby. “You don’t just take that for granted. 

Kirby heads to the flower farm to help team members Joe, Romell, and Dionta with harvesting. A main farm used by Southside Blooms to source their flowers, the Englewood farm includes an array of sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, and marigolds.  

Kirby spends time harvesting marigolds with Romell, Rashod’s brother, to hear more of his story with Southside Blooms. 

“I love it. I’ve taught myself to go to nature in times of need. It’s peaceful, it’s relaxing, it’s calming. It teaches you to let go, to just let it be,” he tells Kirby. 

Romell sees the work they do at Southside and flowers as a metaphor for life itself: “It starts off just as a seed and has to grow into this stage of blossoming, it goes through a lot with rain, wind conditions, but when it’s all said and done, you get something so beautiful...You just apply that to life…you have to be strong enough to take those battles and come out as elegant as a flower.” 

Dionta, who works primarily on the farm, connects with Kirby as they farm sunflowers, “I love being outside. I love being with nature. It’s just peaceful.” 

He tells Kirby life wasn’t always peaceful though. Before he found Southside Blooms, he was going through a rough patch in his life. When a friend encouraged him to come work with them at the shop, he was hesitant. “I was like, no, flowers? Flower farms, man? That’s not my style.” 

But he recalls his friend telling him he just had to trust him, so Dionta made his way to Southside Blooms and asked Quilen for a job, who said yes immediately. 

Dionta also reflects on the worst day of his life: the day he was shot. 

“I see my life flash before my eyes, and the only thing I thought in my head was, man, am I really gonna leave my kids like this? Is my son going to want revenge too? I just wanted to break the cycle,” he tells Kirby. “Southside Blooms showed me a different way. It’s not too late to change. It’s not too late to make a difference…for yourself or the community.” 

Wedding day has arrived and the pressure’s on for Southside Blooms to deliver. All hands are on deck at the Field Museum to get the space ready for the team’s biggest event yet. 

Dynamic duo and dream team Armani and Rashod tackle the daunting task of dressing the staircase, as Hannah deals with unexpected roadblocks, like the museum still being open to the public and delaying their setup. 

“You just need to be ready for things to go wrong. And so you have to be cool, you have to think on your feet,” Hannah expresses.

With stress levels high and the clock ticking, the Southside Blooms team pulls off the event, leaving guests in awe of their beautiful floral work, from the flowers on the stairs to the bride’s bouquet. 

“Everything just was incredible,” the bride, Taylor, gushes. 

The groom, Rashawn, adds, “You think of what perfect is, and when it gets blown away it’s just a miracle.” 

With guests beginning to arrive as the last flowers are placed, Hannah and Quilen can’t help but be overwhelmingly proud of their team. 

“Ultimately, flowers are just a conduit to really allow our youth to really showcase their talents,” Quilen says. “You would never guess that they’re just high schoolers…you would think that they’re seasoned florist professionals. It really goes to show you what these youth are really capable of in our community.”

The team does a group cheer to celebrate their huge accomplishment before Kirby performs his song “Grow.” 

“Flowers, in a weird way, are becoming a bridge builder, and it’s healing our city,” says Quilen.  “It’s connecting communities that otherwise wouldn’t be connected to one another.” 

“We’re gonna change the South Side. We’re changing it right now,” says Rashod. 

Stream the episode now, and stay tuned for more brand new episodes of Making Good, premiering Sundays on BYUtv. 

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