How a $10K Folklore grant bloomed at just the right moment for this struggling small business

After her Bloom With Love flower shop flooded in summer 2025, a $10,000 grant from the Folklore initiative served as a sign from the universe to keep going, Olivia Esquivel shared. Her store is now flowering along the KC Streetcar line with new opportunities.

The Bloom With Love storefront at 1901 Main St., along the KC Streetcar line; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

Bloom With Love — expertly arranged at the busy intersection of 19th and Main in the Crossroads — was one of 10 Latino-owned businesses in Kansas City to receive grants in 2025 from the Folklore program, which is a collaborative effort between Fresco Marketing, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City, and Wells Fargo.

The effort backs small businesses that demonstrate potential, purpose, and community impact.

“You lose a lot of your faith when something like that happens,” Esquivel said of the 2025 flood. “So to have that support [from Folklore] to back you up, it makes you just feel more steadiness within to continue on the journey.”

“I think the journey of entrepreneurship is very, very lonely, and at least for myself,” she added. “And to have that support feels like a warm hug.”

For the fifth consecutive year, Wells Fargo has invested $100,000 into Folklore’s grants initiative, which in turn is directed to its small business winners. Organizers celebrated the ongoing program in September with Folklore’s signature rooftop event — highlighting culture, community, and the people shaping Kansas City.

Next up for Folklore: awarding 10 new $10,000 winners for 2026.

The program aims to promote growth and long-term sustainability by addressing the systemic barriers that have historically limited access to capital in underserved communities, according to its core organizer.

“When we started Folklore, I always knew it had the potential to be something special,” Luis Padilla, founder of Fresco Marketing and the driving force behind Folklore, said in a social media video about the program. “But seeing what it has grown into and now reaching $500,000 in grants for small businesses here in Kansas City is honestly an incredible feeling.”

“Small businesses are such a big part of what makes a city feel like home, the places that we eat, the people that we meet, the ideas we discover,” he continued. “They bring something different to our neighborhoods and give us reasons to keep exploring our own city. And when someone takes a chance on an idea and starts a business here, I think that’s worth supporting.”

Olivia Esquivel at Bloom With Love, 1901 Main St., Suite 101, Kansas City; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

A full-circle surprise

Esquivel’s $10,000 grant came at just the right time for Bloom With Love, she noted. Last July, after a big storm in Kansas City, her then-Eastside storefront took a hit.

“Due to the infrastructure of the streets and the rainwater system, our storefront got flooded,” Esquivel recalled. “It was a lot of water — like three feet of water — so everything was destroyed.”

Dealing with the damage prompted her to apply for the Folklore grant, she said, which she’d heard about previously and admired for its mission.

“I was so inspired by it because my end goal is to do something to give back, as well,” Esquivel added, noting she even made a Mexican flag, heart flower arrangement to take to the Folklore event the year before to show organizers how much she appreciated the initiative.

But when it came time to apply, she wasn’t expecting to win, Esquivel acknowledged.

“And then we did, and it was like, ‘What? Are you serious?’ That really helped us to just keep going,” she said, recalling how she became one of the 10 winners surprised at their businessess last winter with a big check

By the time Esquivel received the grant, she already had plans to move Bloom With Love from the flooded Eastside location to the Crossroads.

“It was like the universe saying keep going and so we did,” she explained. We are, we’re still not where we used to be, but we’re here.”

“I will always be grateful for them,” she added of the Folklore program. “I’ll always support them.”

A flower arrangement at Bloom With Love’s Crossroads storefront; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

A moment to be present

Esquivel’s passion for flower arrangement started as a hobby and creative outlet, she shared. Then one Valentine’s Day she decided to sell a few arrangements on social media. They sold out.

She quickly outgrew her parents’ living room after friends continued to request more flowers, and in 2022, she opened a small storefront near Truman Road and Jackson Avenue.

“I would have never thought I had this coming,” she said.

Eventually, Esquivel — who has made arrangements for several Kansas City Chiefs players and for the Kansas City Current organization — outgrew that space and moved to a larger one next door, where she would stay a couple of years until forced out by the flood damage.

She opened her Crossroads shop in May.

“I’m a visionary, so when I have an idea, I can just see the longevity of it and just go,” Esquivel noted. “It’s been a journey, but it’s been amazing.”

She loves seeing the joy that her flower arrangements bring people.

“Flowers have an energy to them and just having them in your space makes you be present,” she explained. “We’ve had some customers who’ve been with us for years. You get to see how their lives develop, like ‘I met someone, I’m going to ask them to be my person. We’re getting engaged. We’re getting married. We’re having a baby.’”

“So you really get to see the trajectory of lives,” Esquivel added.