This week, we here at TAN – The Afro News, had the pleasure of attending, Business By The Book, a monthly networking event sponsored and organized by Coastal Church, in the heart of downtown Vancouver. The event is held at the Vancouver Law Courts, and brings together professionals from all fields and features a keynote speaker. This event’s keynote was the altogether winsome, sparkling and accomplished, Jenny Konkin.
Ms. Konkin is an intelligent woman and good person; a sheer inspiration! She is the President and Co-Founder of, Whole Way House.
Whole Way House, located in the Avalon Hotel, on West Pender Street, just steps from Vancouver’s infamous downtown eastside, is a full healing approached housing facility for this city’s most precious, vulnerable and overlooked people. Comprised of single room units, Ms. Konkin and her team create a home like environment for the occupants of Whole Way House, many of whom struggle with addiction and are saddled with mental illness. Whole Way House functions with the vision that no one should live or die alone, everyone has value, and strives to provide community, life skills and a much needed boost to the self esteems of these persons who have been largely forgotten by our society; that is when they are not held in disdain.
We were truly amazed at what Whole Way House provides : a community garden, games nights, cooking classes, shared meals, monthly haircuts, birthday parties, pet therapy, life coaching, counseling and skills workshops! Wow! What an impact!
TAN- The Afro News is grateful to Coastal Church for creating this event, Business By The Book, where we can meet with our community and hear the stories of how, using our own positions in the marketplace, we can impact the world around us in a healing way, just like Ms. Konkin is.
If you would like to learn more about Business By The Book, by Coastal Church, please go to: www.coastalchurch.org . If you would like to volunteer or donate, or simply learn more about Whole Way House, Ms. Konkin, and the work they do, please go to: www.wholewayhouse.ca .
By Anastasia Anthony Zervos is a freelance writer and real estate agent at One Percent Realty, who lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband. She has studied Journalism and Mass Communication as well as Theology. Anastasia is a dual citizen of Canada and her native country, The Commonwealth of the Bahamas, in the Caribbean.
