Colleen Brennan left a corporate career at Vanguard to open a flower shop on High Street in downtown West Chester. Five years later, her nonprofit has grown from four employees to 22, with more than half the staff being people with intellectual disabilities.
Brennan, 54, is executive director of the Kati Mac Education Foundation, which runs Kati Mac Floral Designs. The shop pairs professional floral designers with employees who have intellectual disabilities, training them in a working retail environment, according to a profile first reported by The Quad at West Chester University.
The idea started 19 years ago, when Brennan, a West Chester native, and her husband, Jay, learned their daughter Katie had Down syndrome. The couple wanted to create a retail business in the borough where Katie and others with intellectual disabilities could work.
Brennan had originally pictured a coffee shop or ice cream parlor for the High Street space. She told The Quad that flowers were never part of the plan.
"Flowers came to us. We did not seek flowers. Flowers literally just found us," Brennan said.
The opportunity arrived through the Chester County Down Syndrome Interest Group (CCDSIG), a nonprofit support group Brennan had joined after Katie's birth. A friend from the group told her a flower shop that previously occupied the space was becoming available. The accounts of how the shop changed hands differ: The Quad reported the previous shop was being gifted to CCDSIG, while the Kati Mac website describes the Brennans purchasing an established flower shop.
Either way, Brennan jumped in. She said she wasn't sure her years at Vanguard had prepared her for the flower business, but her corporate skills in hiring and leadership transferred.
The shop now handles daily deliveries and designs arrangements for multiple weddings each weekend. It also sells jewelry, artwork and woodwork handcrafted by people with intellectual disabilities. Kati Mac has served as a flower vendor for West Chester University events for the past five years, according to The Quad.
Brennan requires every hire to work with patience and kindness alongside employees with disabilities. She told The Quad the team has exceeded her expectations.
"They have just embraced this mission beyond my wildest dreams," Brennan said.
Families of the foundation employees have described the experience as life-changing, Brennan told The Quad. The Kati Mac Education Foundation says its goal is to provide a space for people with intellectual disabilities to "learn, train and grow through a meaningful employment opportunity."
The shop delivers across Chester County and surrounding communities, including Kennett Square, Downingtown, Malvern and Newtown Square.
