For Heidi Lane, who has spent most of her career working in retail and small business, there was always something about the power of flowers to make people happy that called to her.

And last year, she realized that calling when she opened a store front for her flower shop, The Petal Parcel, 514 Hepburn St.

“My great-grandmother used to send us a lot of flowers, and my fiance has always sent me a lot of flowers, and I just always remember the feeling of it,” Lane said.

“I’m a very empathetic, sentimental person. I like to make people feel good,” she continued.

After working at a flower shop for a few months and learning the basics, Lane jumped in head first.

“I always wanted to create a brand and the Petal Parcel is that brand. I wanted to create a story, and just be very open and let people get to know me, my business and my family,” Lane said.

“I worked at Trebecca, and I just fell in love with that sort of a business. Paul Hendricks was the owner at the time and I’m still close with him, and I actually went back to school while I was there for business management. I just kept working, working, working, to see what works, what doesn’t, because I did some advertising and stuff for other businesses,” she said of learning to navigate the world of small business.

In August 2023, Lane opened her floral business, initially working out of her garage.

“It had no heat or air conditioning. I was just kind of doing it for the love of flowers, really, and the love of the sentiment of it all,” she said.

It wasn’t long before orders came flooding in, leading to Lane leaving what she called a “stepping stone job” to focus on her budding business, which she attributes to a strong social media following.

The reception Lane has seen from her quickly expanding clientele has been overwhelmingly positive, she said.

“People have been really receptive to things I want to try. It’s really incredible,” Lane, who at one point was attending school for criminal justice, said, stressing that she is mostly self taught.

“I did have some training before, and she was a wealth of knowledge, but then I would just watch YouTube and Tiktok videos to try to teach myself,” she explained.

“I’ve always been very creative, but I would watch people and how they put things together. I learned so much from watching florists do their everyday work on Tiktok live,” Lane continued.

Lane’s persistence has paid off as her Facebook page has grown to around 4,500 followers, as she seeks to expand her Tiktok account.

She mainly focuses on everyday events, birthdays, anniversaries and the like and has also dipped her toe into small, intimate-style weddings, but has a strong passion for funeral work.

“I’m providing them a sense of comfort in a way,” she said.

Lane also runs a weekly special during which those who place their orders between 9 and 10 a.m. on select days will be entered into a raffle to receive 10% off their order.

With so much on her plate, Lane still finds time to incorporate several local initiatives into the business, including her own Support a Stem.

“In May, which is mental health awareness month, I ran the Support a Stem, during which I suggested that people send $2 to go towards a $15 bouquet, and every $15 bouquet that I got would go to a random stranger with a little card on it that said, something like ‘keep going,’ just a motivational, sweet, positive messages that the girls that Ashler Manor wrote,” she explained.

“I had everybody on Facebook comment what they wanted the cards to say and it was a big community thing,” Lane said.

The program ended up netting 130 bouquets, which were handed out by area volunteers.

“I do a lot with mental health and suicide awareness and I’ve raised raised money for memorial contributions,” Lane added.

In her personal life, she recently kicked off her Ellie’s Bellies initiative, in which she takes donations to purchase and hand out grocery store gift cards to random strangers.

“My great-grandmother and great-grandfather did so much in this community around the holidays, that’s just who I just want to be like,” Lane said of her philanthropic work.

The Petal Parcel has resulted in Lane being selected as one of the Top 50 Women in Business to Follow in Pennsylvania, as well as recent nominations for a Woman of Excellence Award – Rising Star through the YWCA, as well as the Sun-Gazette Readers Choice.

While complementary of other shops, Lane said that it is the mix of customer service and her unique stylings that make her stand out.

“I would like to think that I’m building relationships with my customers, which is very important to me,” she said.

“But my flowers look a little different than other people’s. I kind of do things that are not traditional for design. I give a fresh take on fresh flowers,” Lane said.

“I’m literally doing this because of how it makes people feel. I just want people to feel good and there’s so many ways to do it, and I think that I’m just using my platform to brighten people’s lives through the joy of flowers,” she said.