Photos: Selling flowers out of her VW Beetle helps Rio woman survive COVID-19

Entrepreneur took to the road after she lost her business amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Last updated: October 10, 2020 | 10:40

Reuters and Compiled by Nathaniel Lacsina, Senior Web Editor

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Rio De Janeiro: You can't miss the green 1969 Volkswagen Beetle parked at the corner, orchids and ferns crowding its open bonnet, sunflowers sticking out of windows, potted plants on the roof.

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Turning her car into a flower shop was Valcineia Machado's survival plan after her business collapsed in the COVID-19 pandemic, and she is has become a hit in Rio's Copacabana beach district.

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At 51, she has reinvented herself, moving from real estate to selling roses and other flower on a busy corner.

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"I had no money at all to pay the rent, so I began to think what I could do to survive," she said, placing a sunflower pot on the sidewalk.

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And it's going well. In the first three days she made enough to cover one-third of the cost of buying the Beetle, and she says she has become the talk of the neighborhood.

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Valcineia Machado, also known as Roberta, organizes her flowers.

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Valcineia sells flowers to a customer.

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Valcineia poses by her car.

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