Today we’d like to introduce you to Anita Vuong.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up here in East LA specifically in Lincoln Heights and am the daughter of refugees who came here from Vietnam after the Vietnam War. I dropped out of college and pursued a career in fashion as I knew that if I worked hard enough, people would notice and it wouldn’t matter if I was college educated or not. It has been seven years into the industry and I currently work full time in the fashion industry in knitwear product development and import production but in the last few years, I started to feel like my life was on autopilot and I yearned for change and for something that I could feel deeply connected to as I was seeking to live my life more intently. So like all millennials hoping to change their lives, I turned to Google for a quick search (kidding but not kidding!). I keyed in words like, “compassion, empathy, human connection, second career, etc.” and in a sea of articles, I found one that stood out to me. I happened upon the term, “Death Doula” and then it led me to a plethora of resources on End-of-Life care and I was hooked. I just knew it was what I wanted to be. I started volunteering for hospice and using social media like Instagram as my tool to connect myself with other likeminded women who were already in this field or actively interested in a more holistic approach to death and dying. So here I am, currently in training to become a Death Doula along with running Guided by Flowers, a floral repurposing initiative, both serving the community.
A few months into my hospice volunteering, I was sitting with the group of volunteers at a meeting and I remembered how I was hospitalized in 2014 and my friend, who worked in production events at the time, came over with a huge floral arrangement that she had taken from an event. She told me that the flowers were just being thrown away and that stuck with me for a long time. The idea that people were just throwing away flowers. In that moment, I looked at the volunteer director and said, if I can somehow get flowers given to me, can I do something with them for our patients? Do I have liberty to gift flower arrangements to our hospice patients if I could? From that moment, my passion project, Guided by Flowers was born and I have been repurposing event flowers to gift to terminally ill individuals in need of a little love and light. In the first six months of operations and all while still working full time in fashion, I have picked up flowers from over 30 events like weddings or photoshoots!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think that my journey to this point has been fairly smooth because I pay close attention to how much my project is growing and make sure that I am nurturing it appropriately but I think that I am struggling with what is the next best step. I am just working out of my apartment which has been a little difficult! I live on the second floor of a building that doesn’t have an elevator so it has been physically difficult to run up and down stairs with so many flowers and my kitchen has taken on the likeness of a floral studio. My refrigerator is often filled with florals as well. So has it been easy? No. Not at all but I am wholeheartedly invested in Guided by Flowers and even when I am working seven days a week and picking up flower arrangements past 10pm or even midnight, I am really happy and I am even more passionate about what I am doing than when I started. Ideally, I would love to be able to dedicate my full attention to Guided by Flowers and Death Doula work and I know it’s getting there but right now, I am just allowing things to unfold because I do believe this is also my life’s journey on a deeper level. If there is any advice I can give others on starting a passion project, it’s really quite simple- just trust yourself and go for it! Trust your gut and be vulnerable. Know that your community is far more supportive than you think and let others know what you want to achieve because your drive and love behind it will be palpable and people will support you. Find your community!
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into Guided by Flowers story. Tell us more about it.
I don’t even know where to begin but I work closely with florists, event planners and individuals alike who do not know what to do with their flowers after an event. They contact me ahead of time so we can work out the details like event date, venue and all the logistical bits. My goal is to make this as easy as I possibly can for all parties involved so I pick up straight from venues. My team and I show up at strike, load up the flowers and then I use the flowers to make smaller floral arrangements to send out to hospices in the Greater Los Angeles Area the following day!
Looking back on your childhood, what experiences do you feel played an important role in shaping the person you grew up to be?
My fascination with impermanence and death began early on as I grew up in a Chinese/Vietnamese home where I was exposed to a lot of funeral rituals born from Buddhist and Chinese Folk Religion traditions but I also attended a lot of western funerals as well. I think that because my parents did not shield me from death and funerals growing up that it really helped me feel more comfortable around it. I was so intrigued by everything I saw but also inspired to challenge the way people look at death across cultures and to familiarize ourselves with the inevitable. There was so much fear and confusion around death and I knew it didn’t have to be that way. Our culture holds so much fear around death and when we find ourselves faced to face with it, either with our own mortality or that of someone we know, we usually don’t know what to do. It’s never too early to start thinking about death and I think that repurposing flowers for hospice patients is a gentle way to bring death to the forefront of people’s minds and I feel really honored to be part of a movement that is changing the narrative of death and dying.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.guidedbyflowers.com
- Email:anita@guidedbyflowers.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/guidedbyflowers
Contact Info:
- Website: www.guidedbyflowers.com
- Email: anita@guidedbyflowers.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/guidedbyflowers
Image Credit:
Anita Vuong
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
