<div>Hello Beloved Community!
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<div><a href="https://www.gentlestrength.shop/about" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Gentle Strength</a> is a worker-owned herbal cooperative made up of four femme and culturally diverse Rhode Island based herbalists: Tammy Kim, Narcissa Segura, Erin Soule &amp; Chandelle Wilson. Gentle Strength is a project 3 years in the making. We’re at the point where we’re ready to go public but still have a long way to go. We are raising $20,000 to help us open a brick and mortar community herbal shop, tea bar, and educational gathering space, central to the Southside and West End neighborhoods of Providence. This will be a place where people can come to connect, learn, and support their well-being through accessible herbal care.
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<div><strong>Our Mission and Vision:</strong>
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<div>Our mission is to make herbal knowledge and care accessible to all, while fostering resilience and connection between people, plants, and the earth.
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<div>Our vision is a world where communities thrive through stewardship of self, each other, and the land. With the support of partners, funders, and customers, Gentle Strength will become both a sustainable business and a vital center for collective healing and shared resources.
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<div><strong>Our Core Values:</strong>
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<div><strong>Accessibility &amp; Equity: </strong>Herbal knowledge is a right, not a privilege. Keeping access to herbal products and education accessible to all.
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<div><strong>Health Sovereignty &amp; Collective Care:</strong> We believe that caring for ourselves and each other is an act of resistance and empowerment. Strong individuals create resilient communities.
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<div><strong>Sustainability &amp; Local Partnerships: </strong>By prioritizing local partnerships through sourcing directly from growers when possible, and building solidarity with other herbalists, we nurture both land, livelihood, and the local economy.
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<div><strong>Collective Ownership: </strong>As a worker-owned cooperative, we embody collaboration, shared responsibility, and collective benefit.
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<div><strong>Connection &amp; Joy:</strong> Fostering connection and sovereignty over one's own body, health and well-being. Balance in well-being includes celebration, pleasure, connection to the natural world, and shared experience.
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<div>As a worker-owned cooperative, Gentle Strength models economic democracy and reinvests profits into the community. Our goals include securing a permanent storefront, to strengthen the ever-growing herbalists network, and become Rhode Island’s leading herbal resource and resilience hub.
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<div><strong>Why a community herbal shop now?</strong>
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<div>This is a powerful and timely project. In 2026, as we face a landscape of political shifts, budget cuts to federal healthcare, and the ongoing stress of urban life, a community herb shop in the West End/Southside isn't just a retail space, it’s a much needed third space based on community resilience and health sovereignty.
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<div>For years, we’ve seen how difficult it can be to find trusted, affordable, and culturally diverse herbal support close to home. Many of us are searching for gentler ways to care for our bodies, our spirits, and each other. What we’re creating is more than a shop, it’s a community space where people can:
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<li>Sip nourishing teas and herbal drinks
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<li>Learn how to use herbs safely and confidently
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<li>Access herbal blends crafted with care
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<li>Attend workshops, mutual aid gatherings, and cultural knowledge-sharing
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<li>Simply sit, rest, be in community &amp; belong
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<div>Our total start-up costs are $139,000: $72,000 in capital expenses for the space build-out and equipment; and $67,000 in working capital to cover rent, utilities, insurance, wages, and other fees during the build-out phase before we can begin operations. We are applying for loans and investing personal funds into this project, but we seek community support to help us bridge the last gap of funding needed.
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<li>To open our doors, we’re raising $20,000 to cover:
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<li>Licensing, insurance, and startup costs
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<li>Our first month’s rent and deposit
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<li>Shelving, jars, and bulk herbs
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<li>Tea bar equipment
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<li>Workshop seating and community space supplies
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<div>Every contribution, whether it’s $5 or $500, helps us get closer to building a space where people can slow down, reconnect, and heal together.
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<div>If you can’t donate, you can still help by sharing this link with your friends, networks, and communities that understand how needed this resource is.
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<div>We believe in the gentle strength of plants and in the gentle strength of people caring for one another.
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<div>Thank you for helping us grow this seedling of an idea into a blossoming community space.
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<div>With gratitude, belonging, and Gentle Strength,
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<div><strong>Chandelle, Erin, Narcissa, and Tammy</strong>
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<div><strong>Who We Are: </strong>
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<div>The four founding members met working together for years at a local herb shop. Through our shared time there, we recognized how we could better serve our community’s wellbeing needs. Together, we offer a combined 35 years of herbal expertise.
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<div><strong>Erin Soule (she/they)- </strong>Erin is a practicing herbalist based in Rhode Island. She previously worked as a community herbalist where she managed a herb shop and conducted herbal consultations. Erin was raised in Rhode Island and has lived in South Providence for the past decade.
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<div>As a passionate advocate of the healing power of herbs, Erin empowers people to take a more active role in their healing journey. She helps folks to explore modalities of health and healing that exist outside of the for-profit paradigm of conventional allopathic medicine. In addition to being an herbalist, Erin is a trained yoga teacher, Reiki practitioner, tarot reader, and long-time mediator.
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<div><strong>Chandelle Wilson (she/they)-</strong> Chandelle is an herbalist, educator, and community organizer dedicated to collective healing and ecological resilience. A descendant of land workers and herbal practitioners, she carries forward a legacy of care, cultivation, and connection to the earth. Her work is grounded in the belief that plants hold not only the power to heal the body, but also the capacity to sustain culture and community.
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<div>Drawing on years of experience in education, gardening, and herbal medicine, Chandelle has cultivated a practice that bridges ancestral knowledge with contemporary community needs. She has guided youth and adults in learning how to grow food, prepare plant medicines, and explore the deeper connections between social justice, health, and the land. In every space she leads, she works to honor traditions of resilience while creating pathways for new generations to learn, adapt, and thrive.
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<div><strong>Narcissa Segura (she/her) - </strong> Narcissa is a dedicated herbalist with over 15 years of experience working with plants, people, and the land. A native of Arizona, she began her herbal path in Rhode Island’s local herbal community before continuing her studies and working under JoAnn Sanchez at the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA). In 2017, she returned to Rhode Island to put down roots, later serving as general manager of Providence’s oldest herb shop.
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<div>Her connection to herbalism began early, making “potions” from backyard plants as a child in an effort to soothe childhood ailments. That quirky childhood pastime grew into a lifelong practice rooted in herbal formulation, medicine making, and an evergreen curiosity for the relationship between people and plant medicine.
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<div>Narcissa is passionate about making herbalism accessible and relevant to everyday life. She believes many people are already engaging with plant medicine in small ways, and hopes to help them build on that knowledge with confidence.
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<div><strong>Tammy Kim (she/they)-</strong> Tammy’s exploration with natural herbal remedies began from a chronic autoimmune condition that sprang up in her adolescence. When allopathic doctors over-prescribed medication that only treated symptoms topically instead of supporting the root cause, she leaned on her deep Korean cultural remedies and her mother’s determination to use plant-based food and herbs to bring healing and balance to her body.
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<div>She is a strong believer that well-being in our bodies is intrinsically tied to a strong connection with the natural world -especially with our plant allies- and a gift we carry with us from our ancestors. She has studied and taught Art, Herbalism, Yoga, Meditation, Astrology, Breathwork, and Reiki. She has years of experience working and managing a local herbal shop, making herbal products, providing hundreds of herbal consultations, and teaching herbal classes throughout the state.
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Our Roots , Our Health: A Community Herbal Shop

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Our Roots , Our Health: A Community Herbal Shop

Still $1,952 to go. Help us build momentum.