Papa Rozier Farms
All photos by Curt Saunders for Black-Owned Brooklyn
Papa Rozier Farms, a Bushwick boutique specializing in all-natural beauty products, carries some of the best skin and hair moisturizers we’ve tried. But managing the gorgeously designed storefront, owned by brother-and-sister team Rubens Amedee and Fredeline “Freddie” Amedee-Benjamin, isn’t really the point of their work. It’s simply a vehicle toward a far more radical mission: to help build up Haiti.
Raised in Brooklyn after leaving Port-au-Prince with their parents as children, the siblings went on to prosperous careers, Freddie as a private-practice chiropractor and Rubens as a trader on Wall Street. Then the 2010 Haiti earthquake devastated their birth country.
“We felt helpless,” Freddie said of watching the disaster on the news. “We’re Haitian Americans, here living our awesome lives. So the question was: What can we do?” ⠀
After years of on-the-ground learning and community building, Rubens and Freddie set the foundation for a multilayered, sustainable project. First, the duo started an organic farm on 50 acres of land in rural Haiti owned by their late grandfather (yup, Papa Rozier Farms is a real place), creating 30 full-time jobs. On that same land they built the BATI School, a K-12 institution designed to equip Haiti’s future with the transformative education needed to address the island’s challenges. Currently serving 85 students from kindergarten to second grade, the BATI School plans to build up each consecutive year.
How do they fund all this? Ingredients from the farm in Haiti are used to produce amazing bath and body products in Brooklyn — sold from the Papa Rozier Farms store in Bushwick.
“Anything we do in here has a direct link to changing somebody’s life in Haiti — a student, a parent, a farmer. Being able to tell them that we have jobs and a school because of what’s happening here in Brooklyn is awesome.”
Stepping inside Papa Rozier Farms, which Rubens and Freddie opened a year ago, you’re greeted by a fresh, warm aesthetic with unique details sprinkled across every inch of the shop. Display boxes are made from the wooden pallets used to ship seeds from their farm in Haiti, for example, and now hold gleaming bottles of oil and little burlap sacks of lotion bars. Succulent plants are potted in pink conch shells. Light fixtures are fashioned from corrugated recycled metal, and rustic window treatments evoke an airy home.
“We wanted to show Haiti differently,” Rubens says of the store’s design, which he sees as an extension of the farm and school in Haiti. “We want to go that extra mile to change the narrative.”
Particularly striking is a large whirring machine, which staffer Barry Thomas uses to turn Haitian castor and moringa seeds into 100% pure oils that are pressed and bottled on-site. “People are starting to think more about beauty, as far as where ingredients are sourced from and how natural they are,” says Rubens. “Bringing the transparency of making this stuff right in front of you is part of our push into that market.
The natural, handmade beauty products sold at Papa Rozier Farms in Brooklyn are made from two primary crops grown on Papa Rozier Farms in Haiti: castor and moringa. The superfood-plants famously treat a seemingly endless variety of ailments, from cracked heels to eczema to puffy eyes and blackheads, while promoting hair growth, anti-inflammation and all-around radiance.
We can vouch for the results of Papa Rozier’s moringa lotion bars and oils, which will leave your skin looking and feeling RESPLENDENT, as well as their castor oil’s hair-nourishing properties. Papa Rozier’s all-organic offerings also include rice soaps, lip balms, body salves, beeswax candles, incense and tea leaves.
“This all came out of a love for Haiti and a desire to do right by Haiti,” says Freddie. “Anything we do in here has a direct link to changing somebody’s life in Saint-Michel Du Sud, Haiti — a student, a parent, a farmer. Being able to tell them that we have jobs and a school because of what’s happening here in Brooklyn is awesome.”
96 Knickerbocker Avenue, 917-957-5036, paparozierfarms.com
