This Mother-Daughter Duo Is About To Open A Whole Wellness Farm Catering To Black Women

Martine and Alexandria Jackson share their entrepreneurial journey to launching B-Omi Farms.

Martine Jackson, a lawyer by trade, and her daughter, Alexandria Jackson, who built her career in product design, branding, and event planning, might not be the obvious choice for transforming 30 acres of bare land into a wellness farm and retreat. But they’re proving that where there’s a vision, there’s a way.

“About three years ago, I relocated to Wendell, North Carolina, for personal reasons. I was closing out 30 years of practicing law and 30 years of marriage after my husband’s passing. I was starting my life new,” Martine says. “I found this land, and I wanted space to grow my own food, to be more intentional about my self-care, and to take real agency over what I was putting in my body.”

But then she got an idea—one that her daughter would help her bring to fruition: “As I was renovating the property, I began to think, what if this wasn’t just for me? What if this was a space where other women like me could come to heal, to exhale, to hear themselves think?”

B-Omi Farms, named after the Yoruba word for water, offers wellness programming including yoga, Pilates, sound baths, and breathwork; farm-to-table dinners and supper club experiences; plus workshops and overnight retreats. They’re currently in soft launch with a full opening planned for late summer/early fall.

“There’s this deeply frustrating narrative that relaxation is a luxury—that homesteading, wellness, slowing down, all of it is this elevated, inaccessible thing,” Alexandria says. “Those experiences aren’t unattainably luxurious by nature. They’ve just been gatekept. What we’re building reclaims that for our community.”

The mother-daughter team shares what it’s been like to pivot from corporate to entrepreneurship and what they’ve learned along the way:

What was it like to quit your day job to become a full-time entrepreneur and open a wellness farm?

Martine: For me, the decision wasn’t about crunching numbers—it was about a vision I could not ignore. When you have something that is innate, something that feels given to you, you move toward it. You don’t wait until everything is perfectly aligned. It requires a constant, continuous step of faith.

I’ll also say this: for many of us, the decision gets made for us. We watched over 600,000 Black women displaced from corporate America, dismissed like they were disposable. That kind of moment—I had my own version of that when I was laid off before law school—only has to happen once. I made up my mind that I would never be in that position again.

Alexandria: I’m still in that in-between space, honestly. I still have my nine-to-five. But what’s shifted is how I see it. My day job no longer has the option to burn me out, because I’ve made a decision about where I’m going, and I protect that energy fiercely.

Change how you see your nine-to-five while you’re still in it. Your job is effectively paying you to work on your dreams. The skills you’re learning, the tools you’re gaining—that knowledge leaves with you. So reframe it. You’re not clocking in for them. You’re clocking in for your future.

How did you prepare yourselves financially for the transition?

Martine: Honestly? Faith. I think we’ve been conditioned to believe that financial readiness is the prerequisite for vision, and I don’t believe that’s true. The vision came first. The provision has followed. That’s not something I can chart in a spreadsheet, but it is something I can testify to. What I can offer practically is this: there is a path forward, and it looks different for everyone. Start where you are. Move in the direction of your answer.

Alexandria: We didn’t have a perfectly laid financial roadmap. And I think that’s actually the more honest thing to say here. You don’t always prepare the way you think you should. What you do is you start, and you figure it out.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently on this journey to launching a wellness farm?

Alexandria: I would have brought in thought partners earlier. There’s something about when it’s your own family’s dream that makes it harder to poke holes in, harder to challenge strategically. I actually had to bring in a designer friend to help with our branding because I recognized I was too close to it. Looking back, I would have been more willing to share the half-baked version of the dream with others sooner. The best things are built in community.

Martine: No. Not a single thing. Every misstep, every wrong turn, every wrong hire—those weren’t detours. They were the journey. I’ve been an entrepreneur for nearly 40 years. I’ve started businesses, shut businesses down, and kept every single lesson. The mistakes are the education.

What’s your best advice for women considering the leap to entrepreneurship?

Alexandria: Just start. And when fear feels like it’s stopping you, remember: the fear of staying where you are should far outweigh the fear of building something new. What’s more uncertain: a life you’re building intentionally, or a livelihood tied to someone else’s temperament?

Martine: Do it scared. Get a small, trusted circle around you—three to five people who genuinely want to see you win, who will ask you hard questions, hold you accountable, and challenge your theories. That space, where you feel safe enough to finally give voice to the vision you’ve been afraid to speak out loud, that is beyond valuable. Once you have clarity, break it into manageable steps. You’re not going to do all of it at once. Just do the next thing and watch what unfolds that you never could have planned for. Also, let go of the outcome. We get so attached to what success is supposed to look like that we become paralyzed when the road doesn’t match the map. And those bumps? They’re not signs to stop. They’re redirections. Some of the best places I’ve arrived, I never would have dreamed of—because a bump guided me there.