Natural Norwalk's Strong Roots

Tucked between The Stand, a purveyor of organic juices, and sits the storefront location of The Centre for Natural Healing. This corner of Wall Street has become known throughout Fairfield County as the epicenter of natural healing. In fact, Try Norwalk Naturally, a web site of member health and wellness businesses promotes the area’s many practitioners and purveyors of all things holistic.

The Centre for Natural Healing promotes itself as a herbal and nutritional consultancy, along with wellness and lifestyle counseling. And as an apothecary.

The word apothecary itself conjures up the bygone era of street-front medicine that has long ago been replaced by the mega-store pharmacies that sell everything from groceries to snow shovels. But in the old days, the role of an Apothecary was the place where a medical professional formulated and dispensed herbal and other chemical ingredients to treat ailments. Today’s mainstream better-living-through-chemistry outlook owes much to the history and science of the early apothecaries which first gained widespread popularity in the middle ages.

Botanical based products have returned to coveted status these days as more and more people become aware of the ingredients of the products they consume—which makes for a thriving business for Suzi Jolicoeur, owner of the Centre. Since 1993, Jolicoeur has managed the apothecary for the business, which was originally founded by Donnie Yance. In 2006 she expanded the business to include the retail storefront we see today.

The Centre, according to Jolicoeur, has one of the largest inventories of herbal tinctures, oils, bulk dry herbs, homeopathic remedies, flower essences and nutritional supplements in the area. She says the products are of the highest quality and chosen for their purity, potency and clinical effectiveness.

As more people discover Norwalk’s natural-health-themed neighborhood, more businesses have become interested in the storefronts. Recently Galaxy Cookies apparently felt a gravitational pull toward the neighborhood and relocated from Westport to Knight Street, perhaps a sign of more to come.