“Grounded” brings plant wellness, and community focus to a changing Anacostia

Anacostia is getting a lot of attention these days. Traffic along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue is as packed as ever. Popular restaurant DCity Smokehouse has moved in at the corner of Marion Barry Avenue SE, the city’s first GoGo Museum is set to open early next year, and even the Department of Housing and Community Development moved into a brand new building in the spring. 

City Developers have plans for Anacostia and it may end up looking more like Georgetown’s storefront-lined main street than home to some of the District’s richest history and culture for the communities who produced it. 

However, one new business hopes to create a third space that doesn’t contribute to the gentrification that many locals have pointed to as disruptive and destructive to their communities. 

“Gentrification is inevitable.” 

That is what Mignon Hemsley, Co-owner of Grounded, a coffee-plant-wellness experience located next to the DHCD headquarters in Anacostia, said. Mignon, originally from the DMV area, along with business partner, Photographer, and Pennsylvania native Danuelle Doswell, started Grounded as an online plant shop during the pandemic. 

With a clean-earthy aesthetic that both captured the interest of their peers. Photos of friends and colleagues fill product displays and line the walls of unity that have formed around their business. Grounded thrived online, garnering business contracts from Meta, Google, and ESPN and companies like them who, Mignon explained, wanted to bring a more relaxing and healing atmosphere to their respective office spaces in the post-pandemic era. Mignon hopes that their new storefront will build a community around the cafe seating area.  The pictures of friends, Mignon told thewash.org, represent long-standing supporters of their business and the community.

The duo opened a storefront for their business earlier this year, adding a cafe, open seating and a Wellness studio to their existing plants and accessories business. 

Grounded is unique, not in its business model, but in its location in Anacostia and what it provided to some big corporations. Coffee shops that offer other bespoke services like “planterior Design” and wellness programming are much more prevalent in other more affluent areas of the city. Still, Mignon said she and Danuelle intentionally chose Anacostia as their storefront’s location. They are both committed to continuing to serve their peers and willing ask the question themselves,  “How is your business helping the community?” 

Stephanie, who works as Grounded’s Plant Care Specialists, considers Grounded a relaxing and healing place. 

 “It’s a chill space,” Stephanie said,  “where plant care meets self-care.” 

Anacostia has always been a working-class community; like many working-class communities, families still feel the squeeze of inflation.

Fashion stylist Mo, who goes by Mo.No.e online and business partner, and fashion buyer, 2D, runs the

Vintage Charmed boutique in the Anacostia Arts Center is a vintage fashion shop offering high-end, lightly worn vintage garments, accessories, and styling services.

Mo said she thinks consumers can afford higher priced items, but has noticed her customers are thinking twice before making a purchase, and would like to see more businesses the community needs.

2D said, “Customers are buying, but they are being more intentional.”  2D would like to see more support for visual artists and is thinking of offering free and discounted art supplies to artists in the neighborhood. 

In the meantime, Mignon is working to bring that “third space” into existence by bringing events and workshops to the space and inviting young people to the space. Mignon and Danuelle have plans to partner with Anacostia, Ballou, and Thurgood Marshall high schools to increase young people’s experiences in nature, teach them about plant care, and provide youth programming from their wellness space. 

Mignon and Danuelle are also sensitive to the different  socioeconomic circumstances residents of their adopted neighborhood face in comparison to other parts of the city, and have promised to work to lower in-store prices to match price points advertised online, a risky decision that many businesses would avoid in favor of reaping larger profits. But Mignon, confident in her business, and the community she has built around it, said, “If we can survive the pandemic, we can survive anything.”