Delray's Collins finds satisfaction, security as an entrepreneur

Ava Mellon, left, helps her friend, Kelly Collins celebrate the grand opening of Kelly's Cottage.

By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — A year ago, Kelly Collins became a statistic, one of the legions of Palm Beach County residents who found themselves out of work during the worst economy since the Depression.

“I thought I was solid,” says Collins, a paralegal for 25 years and a single mom of two boys.

The experience so shocked Collins that she decided to take a different route to finding another job. Instead of knocking on doors, asking others for work, she decided to create a job of her own, so she started Kelly's Cottage, a boutique and consignment shop on NE Fifth Street in Delray Beach.

Collins celebrated the grand opening of her shop Friday with a little help and encouragement from Mayor Woodie McDuffie and members of the Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce.

Start-ups are tough even in the best of times. Recessions, naturally, are worse. Money is tight and prying it out of the hands of consumers isn’t easy even for established enterprises. But the shop has given Collins a sense of security that she says she wouldn’t have had if she had gone to work for someone else. Collins knows that when she gets up in the morning, she has a job to go to.

“It’s a lot of work, a lot of hard work,” Collins says “There are days when it’s scary, but it’s not as scary as working for someone else and being afraid of losing your job.”

Collins began planning the shop last June, doing all the research for the project herself. She opened officially the last week of September.

It helps that Collins knows the community, having lived in Delray since she was two years old. It also helps that Collins has the kind of personality it takes to make a business work.

“She’s a people person,” said Ava Mellon, a friend who owns a hair salon just off Atlantic Avenue in downtown Delray. “She has a lot of friends all over.”

“I love it,” Collins said of running her business. “I really love it. Honestly, how can you not?”

Collins mingles with her guests during the grand opening Friday.

Shoppers examine some of Collins' wares on display during the grand opening.