YOUTH
MINISTRY
Pioneer Rhodes Scholar
Greatest casting call of all
Chelsea Jackson, Emory University’s first black Rhodes Scholar, is a 2014 graduate of Southwest DeKalb. 6
A holiday play at The Ray of Hope Church has the characters at Jesus’s birth auditioning for their roles, with God as the director. 7
Let’s Keep DeKalb Peachy Clean Please Don’t Litter Our Streets and Highways
EAST ATLANTA • DECATUR • STONE MOUNTAIN • LITHONIA • AVONDALE ESTATES • CLARKSTON • ELLENWOOD • PINE LAKE • REDAN • SCOTTDALE • TUCKER • STONECREST
Copyright © 2017 CrossRoadsNews, Inc.
December 9, 2017
Volume 23, Number 32
www.crossroadsnews.com
Oakhurst opens its sixth medical center in Northlake By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
a language other English. He said the Northlake location, which is close to refugee resettlement agencies International Rescue Committee, Catholic Charities and New American Pathways, was the perfect location for expansion. “For several years we have been eager to work closely with the refugee resettlement agencies,” Taylor said, “specifically understanding that we need to be where the people are. “Well, the people are here.”
Cutting the ribbon on the new center are (from left) Dr. Shelia Kennedy, Oakhurst Medical Northlake Family Medicine provider; DeKalb Chamber of Commerce president Katerina Taylor; Oakhurst Board vice chair Daphne Byrd; Oakhurst Medical founder Elizabeth Wilson; and Oakhurst Medical CEO Jeff Taylor.
Oakhurst Medical Centers opened its sixth location on Dec. 6 in Northlake to serve refugees and others without health insurance. The 7,000-square-foot location, at 2295 Northlake Parkway, cost $400,000 to open. It has a staff of six and is offering family medicine and OB/GYN services to patients. Jeff Taylor, Oakhurst Medical CEO, says that in recent years, DeKalb County has welcomed at least 2,000 refugees a year and that 40 percent of Oakhurst’s patients speak Please see Oakhurst, page 4
Faith Swift / Special
Partners aim to make Bnatural a household word Moisturizer has growing base of fiercely loyal users
Business partners (from left) Donald Moore, Daryl Martin, Abena Ajanaku and Sandra Martin have created a new label for their Bnatural product and revamped their online and social media presence, and plan to add travel sizes to the lineup.
By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
Even though Bnatural Total Body Moisturizer has been around for 23 years, most people have never heard of it. The product – conceived, created, and manufactured in Lithonia by Daryl and Sandra Martin – has a deep and loyal following, but only if you know the couple, are friends with them, go to church with them at First Afrikan Presbyterian, or have been lucky enough to meet them at a black business expo. Bnatural product users swear by it, won’t use anything else, and over the last two decades wouldn’t allow the Martins to cease production in the challenging moments when they contemplated it. “They wouldn’t let us stop,” said Daryl Martin, who mixes the special formula of beeswax, olive oil and other natural products to create the moisturizer. “We would be thinking about shutting down and we would get an order from California.” The couple always knew their product had great potential, but with raising five children and holding down 9-to-5 jobs, the business often took back stage to life. But no more. This year, they acquired new partners – family friends Donald Moore and Abena Ajanaku – restructured the company, and in April, relaunched Bnatural to grab a share of the skin care market. The Martins’ story is like that of many entrepreneurs in the African-American community whose good ideas and products struggle from the lack of financing. They developed their moisturizer in 1994 after relocating to Atlanta from Baton Rouge, La. They first lived in Atlanta’s West End in a community of people who cared about what they put into, and on their bodies.
Jennifer F. Parker / CrossRoadsNews
The mid-1990s was an exciting time in the West End and Southwest Atlanta. Wholistic living was taking root around them. The Soul Vegetarian restaurant, and community health stores like Sevananda Natural Foods Market and others were all the rage, and the Martins couldn’t get over how healthy and vibrant their new friends were. “Around us were people who looked healthy and younger than their age,” Sandra Martin recalled recently. “We began to learn that good health starts from the inside out, and that the things you put into your body shows on the outside too.” The young couple began studying herbs and healthy eating and for a while they embraced vegetarianism. Daryl Martin said their research revealed that olive oil has been used for centuries in beautifying the body internally and externally.
“We decided to create a product using olive oil, beeswax and other natural ingredients,” he said. Sandra Martin, who was a hairdresser, began using it on her scalp and skin, and when her customers commented on how great her skin looked, and asked what she was using, she began introducing it to them. Before long, the Martins were selling jars of Bnatural Total Body Moisturizer to their friends and relatives. They also traveled to black expos around the country to introduce the product to new people. But Sandra Martin said that it was their local black community that kept them going with steady reorders. While they had a steady and loyal clientele, the business never reached the potential they knew it had. “We were raising a family and couldn’t devote 100 percent of the time to it,” said
Sandra Martin. With Moore and Ajanaku – both longtime users of Bnatural – now on board, Sandra Martin said they are ready for the next level of business. “Now we are going to conquer the world,” she said with a laugh. Moore, who was a UPS driver for 34 years, retired in April. His fiance, Ajanaku, retired in January 2016 from Georgia’s Environmental Protection Department. Both say the product’s effect on their skins has been an attention-getter. Moore said he started using Bnatural five years ago when he began dating Ajanaku and saw what it did for her skin. “You apply it on your wet skin when you get out of the shower and it locks in the moisture in your skin making it look supple Please see BNATURAL, page 2