Megan | Scottsdale, AZ Florist | Fleur de Vie Studio
OK so in third grade I organized a petition.
Not like a little casual hey sign this thing petition. A full campaign. I walked the entire school during lunch and recess, kindergarten through sixth grade, collecting signatures from every single kid I could find, because the handball court situation had gotten completely out of hand and nobody was doing anything about it and I decided that was not going to continue.
There was one handball court. A group of boys kept taking the ball and kicking it around the soccer field instead. Which meant the girls who wanted to play handball never could because the ball was never there. I brought this up to yard duty. I brought this up to the teacher. I got a checkout system implemented for the balls, which should have already existed, but whatever, I made it happen.
And then the boys, who I’m pretty sure had crushes on us and were just being their weird third grade selves about it, started hogging the actual handball court instead. Every recess. Every day. Making a point.
So I got signatures. I fundraised. I went to the principal with documentation showing how many kids wanted a second handball court and how much money we had already raised toward building one. The teachers matched the funds. The school found the rest. They built a $3,000 wall.
I was eight years old.
I tell this story not to brag about my extremely impressive third grade advocacy work but because I look back at it now and I recognize the exact same brain that runs my business. The same instincts. The same approach. The same refusal to just complain about something when there’s an actual solution available if you’re willing to do the work to get there.
HEADING: The pattern I keep seeing
It’s not just the handball court. The preschool parking lot situation is a more recent example and I want to tell you the full story because on the surface it sounds petty and I promise you it was not.
My daughter’s preschool shares a campus with an elementary school. The preschool is the only grade that charges tuition. Everyone else is public and free. And when the preschool was added to the campus, a small parking lot was designated specifically for preschool families for drop off and pickup. Makes sense. Three and four year olds can’t exactly walk themselves to class.
About halfway through the year teachers started using it. Just a few spots at first. Fine, whatever. Then it was half the lot. Then it was the whole lot plus security staff. And suddenly there were zero spots for the parents who were literally paying to be there.
Now here’s the part that makes it not just a parking annoyance. The street in front of the school is a no parking zone with active police presence. There’s no crosswalk near the preschool gate. So legally, parents had to park down the road in a residential neighborhood that was not built for that kind of traffic, walk down the block the wrong way, cross a busy road, and walk back the other direction just to get to the gate. Seven minutes each way in Arizona heat. With babies. With grandparents picking up grandkids. With pregnant moms, hi, that’s me, doing this in the middle of summer.
All because some teachers didn’t want to walk an extra hundred feet from the actual parking lot to their classrooms.
So I started emailing. Politely. With solutions offered. Not just complaining but actually proposing options. No teacher parking during drop off and pickup windows. Split the lot. Something. The school would acknowledge it, fix it for a week or two, and then the teachers would slowly creep back in. Round one. Round two. Round three. Four months of this.
The final email had photos. A week’s worth of documentation showing the lot completely full of teacher and staff cars, parents walking down the neighborhood road in a line, older grandparents making the same trek, cars blocking the residential street because there was nowhere else to go. I laid out the safety issue clearly. I mentioned that we are the only families on this campus paying tuition. I said I need either a real solution or a conversation about what feasible actually looks like here.
The school director never responded to me directly. But the preschool teacher let me know that same night that they had held a meeting and the parking situation would be getting fixed.
Next morning. Completely empty lot.
It lasted about a month before five teachers negotiated their way back in. But two thirds of the lot stayed open for parents through the end of the year and that felt like a win worth taking. I’ll take it.
And here’s the thing. This wasn’t just about me being irritated about parking. This was the first year the preschool had even existed at this school. Whatever issues come up now set the precedent for every family that comes after. I have another kid on the way. That baby is going to end up in this preschool in a few years and I am way too pregnant and way too tired to fight this same battle again.
So I fought it now. For all of us.
It’s the same thing every time. Something is wrong. Something is impacting people who don’t deserve to be impacted. There’s a solution available if someone is willing to build a case and show up consistently until it gets addressed.
I’m not a march-in-the-streets activist. I’m not petitioning city councils or showing up at board meetings about large-scale issues. That’s not my lane. But when something is wrong in my immediate world, in my neighborhood, my kids’ school, my industry, my client relationships, I am going to notice it, document it, build a case, and keep showing up until it’s fixed.
That’s just how I’m wired.
How it shows up in the work
I think about this a lot actually. The way my justice-oriented brain connects to how I design and how I run this business.
When a client comes in with a wish list and a budget that don’t match, I don’t just take their money and let them figure out later that they couldn’t have what they asked for. I tell them the truth upfront. Here’s what this actually costs. Here’s where your budget goes the furthest. Here’s what I’d do differently and why.
When a couple is planning around a trend that doesn’t suit them, I say something. When a bride is about to spend her entire floral budget on sixteen bridesmaid bouquets that will be abandoned under a table by cocktail hour, I say something. When a design choice is going to block the mountains they specifically chose this venue to see, I say something.
Not because I know better than them about their wedding. But because they hired me for my expertise and my expertise says this isn’t serving them. My job is to advocate for the outcome they actually want, not to just execute whatever they asked for without thinking.
That’s the same brain that got the handball court built. It just redirected into florals.
The part about not just complaining
Here’s the thing I actually believe about this whole approach.
There’s a version of justice-oriented that just means you have a lot of feelings about things being unfair. You notice injustice, you talk about it, you feel bad about it, and then nothing changes because feelings without action are just feelings.
That’s not what I’m describing.
What I’m describing is noticing something is wrong, deciding you’re not okay with it, and then doing the specific concrete thing that might actually change it. Petition. Fundraiser. Documentation with photos. Four calls to a wholesaler from four different angles. Calling Prada and saying we need a backup plan instead of waiting for the problem to solve itself.
Fix it or move on. Those are the options. Sitting in the problem and just being upset about it is not a strategy.
I think losing people early in my life did something to my relationship with time and with how much bandwidth I’m willing to give to things that aren’t moving forward. Life is genuinely too short to stay stuck in something that has a solution available if you’re willing to go find it.
So I go find it. Every time.
What this has to do with you
If you hire me, you’re getting this brain.
You’re getting someone who is going to tell you the truth even when it’s not what you wanted to hear, advocate for your outcome even when it means pushing back on your wish list, and find a solution when something goes sideways instead of presenting you with a problem and shrugging.
You’re also getting someone who genuinely cares whether the thing we build together is actually right for you. Not just executed correctly. Right. The difference matters and I will not stop until I feel like we’ve gotten there.
That might be the most useful thing I learned in third grade. If something isn’t working and there’s a solution available, you don’t wait for someone else to go get it.
You make the petition. You collect the signatures. You build the wall.
If you want someone in your corner who shows up, tells the truth, and doesn’t stop until it’s right, let’s talk.
Want to work together? Let’s connect.
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