Kris Miller
Hiawatha World

Hiawatha Chamber & Visitors Bureau hosted a red ribbon cutting for Faith and Foliage on Thursday afternoon on April 3.

Faith and Foliage was opened and founded last month in March. Business owner Unruh said that the idea for the shop started with how the Unruh family’s plant nursery. The Unruh family owns Wolf River Nursery, which is located south of Hiawatha.

“We’ve had a nursery for 25 years,” Unruh said. “And we had started to grow houseplants out there. But we decided we needed a place that was a little friendlier to houseplants, not quite so much sun and heat.”

Unruh also wanted to include a book shop and a gift shop, so the combination of both the plant nursery, book shop and gift shop combined to form Faith and Foliage.

Unruh said that the store has free wi-fi and tables in the back, so people can have a seat and use their laptop computers, have a cup of coffee and read some books. For coffee service, patrons can use a coffee machine to help themselves.

“We have a Keurig,” she explained. “That people can make themselves a cup of coffee if they want to.”

The goal overall is to create a relaxed environment for patrons to seek refuge in.

“People would just use it as a little bit of a refuge from this busy world!” Unruh remarked.

Unruh stated that she was pleased with having the ribbon cutting and expressing gratitude towards the Hiawatha community.

“It’s pretty exciting!” she said. “We just appreciate everybody that stopped and will stop. It’s a wonderful community. We’ve been in Hiawatha for 25 years and we love it!”