DETROIT – In a warehouse in Detroit, some of the world’s rarest plants are cultivated and grown by Detroit’s very own Rare Plant Fairy, Jocelyn Ho. Her love of rare plants may have started as a hobby but is now a thriving global business.
“It’s like any collectible thing,” Ho said. “People just want the newest, the best. We can ship to anywhere around the world. We shipped to Singapore last week. So, it’s quite amazing to think that a tropical plant grown in Detroit was shipped to a tropical country.”
As her rare and exotic plants make their way around the world, social problems closer to home have Ho shifting her focus to working with the city’s youth.
“In Michigan, every day, seven students are expelled and even more are suspended,” Ho said. “There is something known as the ‘school-to-prison pipeline,’ and I found that honestly appalling.”
She decided to combine what she’s doing for a living with a problem right outside her warehouse’s doors. To date, she has donated thousands of dollars to student mentorship programs in the city and just launched a field trip series to introduce the city’s youth to her rare plants.
“I always wanted to try to find a way to support charities and disadvantaged children,” Ho said. “Bringing kids in on field trips and to introduce them to all these plants and a way to have a career -- all of that ties into STEM education that we want to introduce the kids to.”
Watch Mitch Albom’s The Heart of Detroit feature story in the video player above.