Raised by an entrepreneurial mother and a bodybuilding father, Leah Tracey had the seeds of Lemon and Lime Health Shoppe sown inside of her since childhood. However, it wasn’t until she was laid off from her retail job that Leah was able to seize her opportunity to become an entrepreneur.

With years of experience in the lash industry, best friends Dianna Dwyer and Kristie Lawlor decided to start a new business by pooling their resources, clients, knowledge and skills to open House of Glam, Newfoundland and Labrador’s first dedicated lash studio. They saw an opportunity to change the eyelash game in the province by teaming up to provide a higher standard of safety, training and products.

MBO is proud to help launch a new Social Enterprise that will make it easier for residents and visitors alike to choose local products and services, and live a more sustainable lifestyle. The Guide to the Good will act as an online directory, offering consumers an easy to navigate database of local, social, and green companies.

MBO is excited to announce our partnership with the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, which will see them starting a new Social Enterprise. MBO is providing the start-up financing for this Online Learning Portal, which will offer e-learning classes and training related to hearing loss and noise awareness across the province and the world. 

Business Students for Social Goals is a joint initiative of Metro Business Opportunities and the College of the North Atlantic that will introduce the concept of Social Enterprise to business students and give them first-hand experience in Social Entrepreneurship.

SafetyNL offers their training services at fair market prices, generating revenue to support their organization and its community programming. By engaging in Social Enterprise, SafetyNL has benefitted from financial independence, the ability to hire core staff, increased fulfillment of their mandate, and valuable contributes to society.

Returning home to St. John's, Newfoundland, Danielle Aubut found limited training programs and opportunities for circus-arts performers. She's countered this by opening Cirque'letics, offering a wide variety of fun, challenging, and entertaining circus and aerobatics-based fitness classes - bungee dance, aerial arts, tumbling classes, doubles trapeze, and more.

The first in a series of blog posts highlighting not-for-profit organizations who are accomplishing their goals through Social Enterprise. Read on to learn about the work of Empower, the Disability Resource Centre and how their thrift store Take-Two is supporting their mission.