Entrepreneur pays it forward

Entrepreneur pays it forward

News

By: Sandra Bolan

Five years ago, Laura Jennekens was diagnosed with breast cancer and every day since then, she remembers the people at Southlake Regional Health Centre who helped her get through the chemotherapy.

That’s why Echoes in the Attic, the company Ms Jennekens co-founded and co-owns with Vicky Gerke, has launched the Pay it Forward campaign at Southlake.

On certain days of the week throughout November and December, Echoes in the Attic will have a table set up in the hospital’s main lobby with products, including Christmas stockings, for sale. Fifty per cent of the proceeds from each sale will go to the Southlake Regional Health Centre Foundation’s money raising campaign for the new regional cancer program.

“It’s a natural evolution because my partner used to work (at Southlake),” Ms Jennekens said. “She has been affected by cancer in her life. I was diagnosed and treated there with my own cancer five years ago, so this is a celebration of that.”

In August 2007, construction began on Southlake’s Regional Cancer Centre, which, when open in 2009, will give thousands of cancer patients from York Region and south Simcoe County access to one of Canada’s most advanced cancer treatment facilities.

Of special interest to Ms Jennekens and Ms Gerke will be the availability of radiation treatment.

“I know what it’s like to drive to Toronto for 33 days in a row for two minutes of exposure to radiation,” Ms Jennekens said. “(It) chips away at your spirit.”
It was fall of 2003 when Ms Jennekens’ first found a lump in her breast during a self-exam.

“I was very healthy, very fit and I think I was still sweating from a 10K (run) I did that morning,” she said of when she received the call with the news she had breast cancer.

Ms Jennekens cut off her hair before it could fall out and sewed the braids onto a bandana she wore to cover her bald head.

“I’d always been into recycling, but this was the craziest, most desperate act I never could have imagined myself doing,” she said.

While at home and undergoing chemotherapy, Ms Jennekens needed some assistance in completing a slip cover for her couch.

Enter Ms Gerke, Bradford’s go-to seamstress.

The women struck up a friendship, which resulted in the company Echoes in the Attic.

For almost three years, the women have been designing and selling one-of-a-kind bags and pillows made from fabric remnants.

“We live in Bradford, we’re mompreneurs and divert 200 to 500 pounds of fabric every two to three weeks from going to the landfill,” she said. “Even in this economy, it is a little scary, but our company just keeps on going because people want to do well for the environment.”

For more information on Echoes in the Attic, visit www.echoesintheattic.com.

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