Loretta Shelton spends each Mother’s Day reading through hours of text messages and mailed letters from her family. Not just her immediate family, but her extended family that has spanned across the globe over the last two decades.
Along with her husband Keith, Loretta Shelton, the owner of Flower Girl Wedding & Florist in Columbus, has helped hundreds of international students that attend The W in an effort to get them acclimated to the Columbus lifestyle. In return, the Sheltons have become known as the “Mom and Dad” of the university.
“It’s been incredible,” Loretta Shelton told The Dispatch in a recent phone call. “We have learned a lot of culture (from the students). You understand a lot more things worldwide after you get to know them and see how they lived. … It’s been incredible for us.”
Shelton said she has had “children” from mostly Nepal, but also Nigeria, Jamaica and some European students since 2000, when she began helping students by picking them up at the airport for the university, providing linens for beds and helping to furnish apartments.
It started through a ministry at The W that was originally called Impact Christian Fellowship.
“International students, or students in general would come, and they didn’t have a lot of financial back end. They didn’t even have linens for their bed,” Shelton said. “We would buy that. People caught on to what we were doing and started investing in us and giving us resources, products, and used furniture.”
Many of the students, who were business majors, also learned the ins and outs of Shelton’s business.
Shelton began her own flower shop after her old employer sold their business. Eventually, Shelton’s operation grew to the point where she needed to buy her own building and staff to keep up. The Flower Girl, located on Military Road in the former Medical Arts Pharmacy building, specializes in weddings, but has grown in many aspects since its opening.
“You do a wedding and then when they have their first baby you are sending stuff for them, then their grandparents that pass away,” Shelton said. “You just build customers for life. The weddings were my main thing and then it just turned to full-time everything. That is kind of how we have grown it.”
As her business has grown, so has her “family.” Shelton said she remembers each of her international kids, their names and what they have done with their lives since. Some of them recently opened their own Nepalese restaurant in Columbus.
Shelton says she has received toys and trinkets from all over the world as gifts, and that they serve as daily reminders of the students she and her husband have gotten to know.
Justin Frommer is the Mississippi State sports reporter for The Dispatch.
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