Lorephil Toledo with President Elect Loida Lumanlan
This past week we heard an informal talk from Lorephil Toledo, a local business owner and new-comer to Canada. Lorephil told us that she arrived in Canada from the Philippines in 2011 with no money and no English language skills. She had only her hopes for a better life for herself and her family and a very hard working spirit. She first worked as a restaurant shift supervisor for several years before starting to do house cleaning as well. She found it quite lonely at first as she had no family here and had left her two small children with family in the Philippines to take this opportunity. Several years later, once she had obtained her permanent residency she immediately returned to the Philippines to bring her family here as well. One day one of her house cleaning customers asked her why she didn’t start her own company as she was so hard working they thought that she would be able to make a success of whatever she did. At first she was scared of the idea, but after much encouragement she decided to go for it. She founded her own house cleaning company, Canajan, in 2016 and incorporated in 2019. Her business is doing well and she now has seventeen employees.
Lorephil said that she sees her success as having a responsibility to give back to others by giving them an opportunity to make a new life for themselves. She does this by helping other people to come here from the Philippines and giving them a hand up. She believes in doing what she can to make other people happy, whether it means taking the extra time to talk with a lonely senior customer or giving encouragement to other new immigrants that they can make a life for themselves here in Canada. She said that if she could do it, coming here with no money and no English, anyone can. Her hope for the future is that she will be able to expand her business to create more jobs that will build dreams for others as well.