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My Story
My story is a journey from teacher to entrepreneur, with many successes and struggles along the way.
My ability to see gaps in our systems, began when my husband at the time and I were house hunting. There were no houses available that were wheelchair accessible.
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Think about it – here we were trying to look at homes and make the biggest purchase of our lives and yet, he was not able to enter any of the homes to view them!
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I was not willing to accept this reality, so I started phoning builders
until I found one who would custom-build a barrier-free home for us.
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We knew we weren't the only ones frustrated with the lack of accessible homes to view. So, after our home was built, we let the builder use it for one year to become the first wheelchair-accessible show home in Edmonton.
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Even after building this special home, finding ‘gaps’ in the systems continued to be an important theme of my life. This was especially true when I was working as a special needs teacher for Edmonton Public Schools.
My Vision
I had the perfect part-time job during University caring for children with special needs, having a lot of FUN and getting paid for it.
The idea for AdaptAbilities began when I connected with three families, providing respite care in the evenings and on weekends. I built a strong relationship with these families and our partnership was essential to their well-being.
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They shared their experience with other families and all of a sudden,
families were reaching out to me, looking for an essential break from caregiving.
I knew there was an incredible gap that needed to be filled.
Here I was with a full-time teaching job, organizing friends to provide respite care!
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Once I hired my first employee to recruit Relief Care Specialists everything took off within 3 months and we quickly grew to 50 employees. The organization was growing more quickly than I could keep up with. My own home became our office and my very own basement became our main programming and respite center!
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For many years AdaptAbilities grew in an explosive way. From those humble beginnings in my house, we continued to grow and we opened three respite centers and a 7000-square foot headquarters. We were running programs out of community centers and in homes across the city.
We quickly became a multi-million dollar social enterprise. It was both an exciting and an overwhelming time. I never dreamed that we would become a team of 200 people strong! That we would support thousands of individuals with special needs and make an unimaginable impact on their families. It was beautiful. And it was hard.
I absolutely loved what I was doing but the direction and pace I was headed in wasn’t sustainable. The harder I worked, the harder it became. I realized something was holding me back.
The road was tough and there were many times I considered quitting.
A Transformational Journey
For me to continue to grow, I had to take a very deep look at my life, and open my eyes to new possibilities.
I began my own transformational journey in 2015, when I joined a peer support group of other women entrepreneurs. I realized very quickly that together we could overcome our challenges much more efficiently together.
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When we elevated one another, the possibilities for personal growth became limitless.
"Awakening is not changing who you are, but discarding who you are not."
Deepak Chopra
Finding JOY in the Journey
When I was in a place of complete exhaustion, being overwhelmed and feeling deflated as my beautiful creation (AdaptAbilities) consumed me.
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This picture of a sunflower kept coming to me. The seed from this flower is from my grandparent’s yard.
The flower symbolizes the need for balance in my life.
Each petal represents a part of me that makes up who I am and what feeds my soul. Now I view this flower with such beauty.
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Whether it’s my fulfilling work as the CEO of AdaptAbilities, my sacred role as a mom and wife or the creative side of my life, there is balance represented in this flower.
