Five Sisters Want To Bring Their Raw Juice To Detroit

Plymouth (WXYZ) -
Creating the perfect raw juice requires exactly the right ingredients in precisely the right proportions even if they don’t seem to go together, like apples and beets for instance.

It’s a lesson the James sisters have spent a lifetime learning.

“We don’t agree on anything.” Jessie says with a laugh.

“I’d say we rarely agree on everything,” Julie agrees, “but its fun. We keep a good sense of humor about everything we do. I like to say and it makes things a lot easier. And we all bring different things to the table.

Jessie the New York-based hairdresser is the creative and outgoing sister, Julie explains. Jane the yoga instructor is the precise sister, creating and executing their juice recipes.
Caitlin is the smart, organized sister; Jenny is the workhorse, responsible for motivating the street team. And Julie handles the marketing.

After frequenting the numerous juice bars in Manhattan, Jessie and Caitlin had the idea they ought to bring raw juice back to Detroit’s Eastern Market. They call it “Drought Juice” as in ‘the cure for a drought’.

“Anything once it’s given the proper nourishment will bloom again,” Julie explains. “And that's kind of what we want for anybody who tries our juices.”

But the sisters are experiencing a bit of a drought of their own. They need money to open their business at Eastern Market. So they’ve turned to an innovative web-based funding organization called “Kickstarter” .

“It’s very simple,” Julie says. “You can essentially write your business plan on-line, make a video or something compelling and when people pledge money you have to give them a small gift in return for each level. One of the good things we're doing is for the 300 level pledge we’re giving away 4 front row tickets to a Tigers game. So we're trying to keep it exciting ... the whole tie-in with Detroit.”

To get Drought Juice up and running, the sisters need to buy a few industrial juicers, knives, and packaging materials and bank some rent money. So they’re asking for a little over $12,000. And they have to get it all by Friday, March 18th or they receive none of it.

With two weeks to go, The James are halfway to their goal of introducing their all-natural raw Drought Juice to Detroit.

And what happens after their juice hits Detroit? “The world!” Jessie laughs. “New York and beyond.”