Gibsons furniture store owner Sandra Kern’s program to assist first responders has received recognition from the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.
Kern’s offshoot business, Thank You Heroes, was nominated alongside Style In Form for the Excellence in Collaboration Award at the trade board’s inaugural Business Reinvention Awards held in February, recognizing “businesses who have reinvented, adapted, and shown resiliency in the face of all challenges and barriers in 2020.”
While the Vancouver Whitecaps FC and Ocean Wise were declared winners at the virtual event, Kern said she was pleased to be nominated in the same category.
Kern, who owns Kern’s Furniture on Gibsons Way, established the separate business, run through a private Facebook group, to provide first responders and health-care workers across Canada with access to warehouse direct pricing in collaboration with furniture wholesale broker Style In Form.
Fatefully, the business was established in December 2019 as an appreciation program based on conversations with family and friends who work in those sectors.
“When January rolled around and the world fell apart, I thought, I can’t launch Thank You Heroes now,” Kern told Coast Reporter.
After a few months, she returned to the idea with Alison Buchanan of Style In Form. “I remember having a conversation with Alison. We were both crying. [We were] so emotional and stressed out,” Kern said.
“I said, ‘I’m just going to launch Thank You Heroes. Let’s have fun with this. Let’s do something good.’”
The program launched in May and six months later grew to 3,000 members. Based on the success of the program, work is underway to establish a similar program called Homes for Heroes, which will assist first responders and health-care workers with home purchases.
Kern said she welcomes local first responders and health-care workers to contact her about Thank You Heroes at 604-313-9366.
