By: ANN BROWN
Thursday, April 23, 2015 – Black Entrepreneurs: Roni DeLuz
In the spring of 1990, Roni DeLuz, then 35, was married, a mother and enjoying her career as a registered nurse in Southern California. She and her husband, at that time, owned and operated three nursing homes providing health care to medically fragile and developmentally disabled children and adults. But she began to have health problems of her own. Her joints and muscles started to ache. She was even experiencing night sweats and her heart was racing. After consulting close to 30 physicians, no one could figure out what was wrong. But something was terribly wrong.
Eventually, DeLuz tried the holistic approach and detoxed, among other natural approaches. It was a long journey but it was helpful and insightful. This move not only healed her, but changed her lifestyle and prompted a new business venture.
In 1996, DeLuz earned her PhD in Natural Healing and enrolled in the Clayton School of Natural Healing to receive her N.D. (Naturopathic Doctorate Degree). And in 1999, she opened the Martha’s Vineyard Holistic Retreat located in Vineyard Haven.
“What led me to open my retreat was being sick for many years living in Thousand Oaks, California when I came down with a mysterious illness which led me to over 50 doctors but not getting better – just collecting drugs and getting worse to the point that my entire body hurt, even my eyeballs. After many years of suffering, I went back to school to become a naturopathic doctor. Eventually, I learned that the body can heal itself if you give it the nutrition plus the detox the body needs and customize herbs and micronutrients it needs to heal,” she explains.
Related: Martha’s Vineyard Golf Classic Getaway 2015
Dr. DeLuz self-funded the venture. “I raised funding to open the retreat in Martha’s Vineyard by working as a nurse at night at a long-term care facility plus by selling my long term care facility in California to open the retreat on Martha’s Vineyard. I was highly motivated and work 18 hours most days to try to catch up after being sick for years,” she says.
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