Hello Plant Lovers & Supporters!
As you all may know, CrazyPlantBae is a small local family-owned business in the heart of Treme, a historic neighborhood right outside the French Quarter in New Orleans, LA. My family (my mom, sisters & niece) & I opened during the pandemic in April 2020 as a way to provide hope and light to you all through our love for plants.
We have remained open for over four years and moved into our current location in December 2021. Our lovely store sits on a prominent corner in a very culturally rich and important intersection in the city. Out of this plant store, we also operate as a collective space for 15+ local Black Women-owned businesses to sell their handmade and curated products.
While this has been an amazing centrally located store for us to be accessible to the plant community, this store has flooded 3 times this year and has been hit twice in the middle of the night.
Around 2am on November 3, 2024, I got a knock on my door from a neighbor telling me that there was a car that went into the store. When I arrived, the car had badly damaged a wall, broke the windows, and knocked over and damaged all the inventory inside in that section. It turned out to be an uninsured drunk driver that barreled into the wall of our store.
As a small business, it has become increasingly more difficult to operate and keep our doors open. Each of the 3 times it has flooded this year, we have lost inventory and had to close to clean up. During a painfully hot and slow summer, we closed for a few days in anticipation and aftermath of Hurricane Francine and her flooding.
This most recent accident, loss of inventory, shelves, loss of business, etc. is especially painful coming off of such a slower than usual summer.
CrazyPlantBae has been a labor of love and has been self-funded until this point; however, we are in need of some additional support to ensure we are able to remain open and continue to provide a space for the community to love plants.
Donations received will be used to replace inventory and shelving units that were destroyed, make up for any days that we are unable to open, continue to support our staff and local vendors, help with mounting business costs & help us recover and stabilize after a number of unfortunate events such as flooding and accidents.