Man starts landscaping business after going blind in prison

When Leonard Fantroy began going blind in prison in November 2014, he initially thought the sharp pain in his eyes was a migraine. 

Then he stepped outside and saw what looked like a thick fog enveloping the prison yard — but other inmates couldn’t see it. 

After a series of neurological tests, doctors confirmed what Fantroy feared, that he was losing his vision. 

“I'm sitting there crying because I'm like, I got all these plans when I go home to take care of my family because I don’t want to go home and sell dope,” Fantroy recalled. 

Transporting and selling drugs in Detroit had landed him in prison three times. Legally blind when he was released for the last time in 2016, Fantroy said he found a new determination to not return. 

He started a landscaping company in 2018, rounding up a crew made up of his teenage sons and guys from his neighborhood on the city’s northeast side, some of whom also had criminal convictions. He dreamed up the idea after a month of sleeping on the floor because he couldn't afford furniture for his rental home. 

This story originally appeared in the Detroit Free Press. To read the rest of the story, click here.