8-Year-Old Aarón Moreno Launched Plant Business to Help Family
Aarón Moreno is an eight-year-old boy who launched a plant selling business to provide his family with financial assistance
Photo: Instagram/@aaronsgarden
Aarón Moreno is an eight-year-old boy who launched a plant selling business to provide his family with financial assistance. His mom is single and undocumented and her financial struggles motivated him to take $12 and buy plants from Downtown Los Angeles to resell in Boyle Heights, that first sale netted a profit of $4 profit. The business, dubbed Aarón’s Garden, has grown now to the point that he was able to move his family out of the shed they were living in and into a real apartment on Nov.1, CNN reports. The profits along with the funds from a GoFundMe that has so far raised more than $56K have completely changed the family’s life allowing them to also purchase a car for the first time in four years.
“Our shed was hot and crowded and I wasn’t happy,” Moreno told CNN. “I started my garden so my mom won’t be stressed because I don’t like seeing her struggle.”
They didn’t have the internet or a table which meant he struggled to do his homework. They also showered outside and used the bathroom from a nearby restaurant, the Today Show reports.
“As an undocumented person, I didn’t have many laws to protect me. When I lost my jobs, I didn’t get a stimulus, I didn’t get unemployment. I was on my own and I would stay up at night trying not to cry so my kids wouldn’t hear me. I wanted to sleep my life through,” Pacheco told CNN.
His mom lost both her jobs in March due to the pandemic and for several months she and Aarón would wake up at 6 a.m. to take the bus to the flower district in DTLA to search for plants. They would sell them from their shed or occasionally host a pop-up shop. It was at one of their pop-ups that a man donated $1,000, which they used to bring his 10-year-old sister Ayleen Pacheco home from Mexico, where she’d been living after Pacheco sent her to live with family due to their financial struggles.
“The best part of what Aaron has done for us is bringing back his sister,” Pacheco told CNN. “It was so hard being without her and we are a whole family again. And I was so happy to see they still had their amazing bond even if they spent so much time apart. It’s such a blessing.” Now his sister rejoins the family that includes a 2-year-old sibling, according to the GoFundMe. “I’m just so proud of my brother because he was the one who got me back,” Ayleen told KABC.
