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Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 3, No. 15 - April 15, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.....................11
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Huber’s Hiccups..................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals...........................6,8-10
Pets......................................12
Weekend
Forecast
South Bay Local’s Passion For
UCLA Leads Him To the Finals
Malcolm Au, center, and UCLA basketball team. Read about Malcolm’s journey. See story in the box below.
Friday
Partly
Cloudy
65˚/53˚
Saturday
Partly
Cloudy
65˚/55˚
Sunday
Sunny
78˚/59˚
Lawndale Tribune
AND lAwNDAle News
Hawthorne Press Tribune
Featuring the Weekly Newspapers of Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale
Marisa Scarda and Mario Sandoval
Bring Smiles with Natural Simplicity
By Kiersten Vannest
Flowers have a language. Their colors
symbolize sentiments like love, friendship,
and mourning. Their leaves can signify a
season or a feeling. Their presence can speak
to our relationships, and change our mood.
No one speaks this language better than
Marisa Scarda and her business partner Mario
Sandoval, who own and operate a flower
shop here in El Segundo called Natural
Simplicity. Natural Simplicity is celebrating
its thirteenth year in business this year. Their
flowers have made it to massive conferences,
corporate events, social events, weddings,
and even funerals.
While Mario designs the bouquets and
handles the creative side of things, Marisa
holds the fort down on the business and administrative
Malcolm Au Continues to be a
Valuable Asset to the South Bay
By Duane Plank
When a South Bay Cities writer tracked
down Malcolm Au for a phone interview
that led to this profile, Au was nowhere
to be found in the confines of our little
community.
No, the 2020 UCLA graduate was
traveling in a car more than 2,000 miles
away, traversing the roads of the great
state of Indiana, heading towards Lucas
Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, where the
underdog Bruins men’s basketball team
would later that evening edge a favored
No. 1 regional seed Michigan Wolverine
team, 51-49, to advance to the NCAA
tournament’s final four.
Au had a solid reason to travel to Indianapolis
to watch his alma mater play
in person instead of watching from the
comfortable confines of a couch in the
South Bay. In his initial tenure at the
Westwood campus, during his freshman
year, Au had served time as the men’s
basketball team manager before his world
took a quick U-turn. He was compelled
to “drop everything” and return to his
native Singapore to fulfill a mandatory
two-year military stint that is expected
of all male citizens.
Au ironically noted that his two-year
military career was a tad bit longer than
his prior residency in Singapore, which he
estimated was “a place that I had never
side. Born in Argentina and raised
in Hawthorne, Marisa began as a mortgage
loan processor. In 2007, after fifteen years
in the field, she took time off for maternity
leave and came back to the market crash of
2008. It was time for a change.
At that point, a good friend of hers (Mario),
who she’d known since high school,
was operating a flower business out of his
garage. She loved his work, and they decided
to partner and open an official shop. Her
husband, who worked in computers at the
time, told her that his office was subleasing
half their space in El Segundo. They talked
to the owner, and Natural Simplicity was up
and running soon after.
Marisa’s job consists of going out and talking
to hotels and restaurants, meeting with
clients, handling the back end parts of the
shop, and assisting in set up on event days.
With just Marisa, Mario, their driver, and
a couple of people who help out in the shop,
they have event setup down to a science.
“Usually, we don’t have a lot of time to set
up for weddings,” says Marisa, “Most of the
places give you an hour tops.”
First, the client comes in, hopefully with
some idea of what they want, and discusses
their vision with Mario. Mario listens for
things like color schemes, soft or bold colors,
feelings, and styles. Clients sometimes bring
in Pinterest boards to give him a better idea
of what they want. From there, Mario begins
work on the bouquets, and Marisa works with
the venue and other vendors to organize the
See Natural Simplicity, page 7
See Malcolm Au, page 6