Welcome Oceanchick
There are those here with much more experience then I have, and I am sure they will be able to offer you more advice, but I will just tell you what I can. From what you wrote I would suspect root rot. It is good that you have isolated the plant. Always a good idea with any new plants you bring into your home for at least a month or two.
When you buy a plant from the grocery store they are potted in a very heavy soil, usually mostly peat. This holds water well, so it is good for the seller, but bad for the plant. African Violets need a very light soil that drains water well. The heavy soil from the store holds it to well and so causes root rot. Most African Violet growers use a mix that is 1 part peat, 1 part vermiculite, and 1 part perlite, or something close to it. You can buy the parts and mix them together yourself, or buy a soil labeled for African Violets and add more pearlite to that. By themselves, even potting mixes labeled for African Violets are usually to heavy.
You said that the plant does have new growth areas. With African Violets, as long as there is new growth there is hope! I would take the plant out of the pot it is in and gently work the soil away from the stem and roots so that you can see what is going on better. Anything that is brown or mushy needs to be cut away till you get to what is left of a firm stem, with or without roots. Even if all you have left at this point is a green leaf with no signs of rot on it you may be able to create a new plant from this. You can gently handle African Violet leaves. They really dont mind. I even pet mine sometimes. (Big grin) What they donÂt like is water left on their leaves, then being put under strong light before they are dry.
Once you have plant parts free of rot, you can use a tiny bit of root gel or powder on what's left of the stems and put them in the light potting mix. Add just enough water to make it moist and then tent the plant or leaves under a sandwich baggie or something similar. In a few weeks you should have new growth, and maybe new babies growing off of any leaves you planted, and you can remove the plastic.
Good luck!
Raven

Welcome and good luck! Dora and Raven gave great advice. Hope you're able to save your plant.

If you have an account with an image hosting service such as Photobucket, WebShots, etc., you can post photos right in the messages in this section of the forum by copying and pasting the service's link to your picture inside the message box as you're creating your post. If you don't have an account, it is easy and free to get one.

If you don't have/want an image hosting account, you can go to the AV gallery section, start a message, upload your picture, and a link will allow people to view it there. You'll also need to post a message here referring people to your gallery post. Below is a link with detailed information on how to post pictures. Photos are so helpful when trying to ID plant problems.

Hi,
Most of us here have had similar problems in the beginning.
Please don't get discouraged and you will find that AV's are easy to grow. I have made an offer a number of times here on the web to send three info sheets that I used to hand out to novices when I lectured on AVs. If you are interested, email me and I will send them back to you as an attachemnt.
Fred in NJ

i'm such an idiot, maybe you guys should take my houseplants away. laughs. i couldn't remember the site! now that i have it bookmarked, i won't lose it but sheesh.

i took the AV out of the pot & discovered underneath there WAS standing water and totally drenched soil that i couldn't see from the top/sides. seeing that, i manually squeezed excess water out of the soil and off the roots. i took a lot of soil out, made sure what i have left in there is very fluffy and light. i then put it in a zippy bag and put against window w/ morning sun only, and left it there w/o disturbing it for a week. much to my surprise, the AV is still alive and i have 2 itsy bitsy new leaves, so i hope there is still time.

i got the Actinovate but omg, reading the cautions, warnings, do not's, etc i'm scared to open the package! also i'm very unsure how much if any to use being as though you'd only need 1tsp or so for something like 1-5 gallons of water. we're on cesspool system here in Long Island, so i know i can't let anything go down my drains or else things could get ugly.

i've considered cutting back to the crown, but i hate to cut off the new baby leaves. older leaves are still wilting.

after a week in the baggie, leaves that were already grey and wilted started showing white spots, which i'm thinking is some kind of mold reaction to moisture in the zippy bag?? i've removed the plant from the baggie now but i am not adding water. soil is still slightly moist via finger test. i also made sure the soil was still fluffy. i did buy bag of AV potting mix which i plan to use when i repot the AV as the drainage i thought i had obviously wasn't good enough.

thanks for the advice and for the welcome. i'm hoping that someday i'll know enough to be helpful as you all are.

any advice regarding the updated condition is appreciated.

Well, you're off to a start :)
I would recommend that you get your hands on something called "Perlite" (looks like little white/ragged bb's) and ad that to your AV mix. Most commercial AV mixes sold in box stores are still a bit too dense and would benefit from the additional perlite.

I understand not wanting to cut the crown out but you will probabaly/eventually have to do that anyway. Why not just go ahead and cut the crown out where those new leaves are coming in? The fact that new leaves have come up is proof that life is in there but if you wait, the root rot or whatever is ailing the plant may get to that crown too if left alone.

If it were my plant, I'd cut out the crown, plant that crown in some of my new soilless mix, bag it and put it back in that window for about a month. I bet in that time, you'll have 4-7 new leaves and the rest of the rotted plant will have been long gone and not infecting other stuff.

Stick around,
Dora