From February 11th through 14th, florists are pretty busy in selling Valentine’s Day flowers. Due to rush of orders, they are running short of not only simple manpower but also expert specializing in floral arrangements. The other day we were approached by a local florist requesting us to send a student to help them arrange Valentine’s Day flowers. One of my students wanted to help them in the hope that she can learn actual job as a floral designer working for a floral shop.
The florist mentioned on the phone that our student may or may not be paid, which will depend on the level of floral designing skill. This means she must be sent as a volunteer and if the florist found her skill pretty good or reasonable, they will pay.
Based on this conditions one of our students was sent to the florist. She worked on Feb 11th, 12th and 13th (today) and also will work tomorrow as well. During busy days, florists need extra help preferably people who are familiar with floral arrangements. As a matter of fact, she got paid for hours she worked, which meant that her flower arranging skill was fairly evaluated by the florist and also it was good not only for florists but also a student because the florist could “hire” a person with a reasonable skill and a student could learn actual job as a floral designer working for a florist by getting paid.
In California the minimum wage is $8.00 per hour ($10.55 in San Francisco) in 2013. Therefore my student got paid a compensation of a minimum wage level. This kind of simple request for sending a student as a “part timer” is not very difficult to comply with as far as our student can accept it. In the past we have got requests which were pretty difficult to accept. A few years ago, one of florists in New Zealand sent email to our school requesting us to send students (who are scheduled to complete all the courses). And they said they would make arrangement to get a working visa.
Another request is from Singapore. A certain lady (who is from Thailand and living in Singapore) approached our school requesting for help and support because she was planning to open a floral shop and most probably floral school in Thailand. She wanted to learn floral designs to earn practical skills enough to run a floral shop and offer flower arranging lessons over there.
Quite frankly speaking the situation surrounding us did not allow us to comply with above mentioned requests from foreign countries. Getting back to Valentine’s Day special help, it COULD be a good opportunity for our students to have a practical experience and confirm whether or not her skill of floral decorations can work out or not.
California Flower Art Academy has been engaged in teaching a variety of floral arrangements from European designs to Japanese Ikebana, regular decorations to special event arrangements, wedding to funeral decorations AND beginner to professional levels. If you seriously want to earn practical skills of floral arranging, we can help. Our hands on training of ONE ON ONE instructions will greatly help entry level of students easily and quickly earn practical skills. You can start from Introductory Trial Budget Program which costs only $69 covering not only tuition but also flowers, floral foam and also a container as well. No hidden cost at all. For more information, contact info@california-academy.com
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