With the grand opening of the new RONA+ store on Newmarket's border, one thing store manager Dale Khabo wants the community to know is that this is about supporting them.
He describes his team at RONA+ as a “family” who understand that without their customers they wouldn’t exist.
“Everybody wins at the end of the day if we take care of our community,” said Khabo at the celebration today at 18401 Yonge St. at Green Lane in East Gwillimbury. “We make sure there’s a place for them to shop in a professional and customer-friendly environment, and at the same time, we’re keeping people employed.”
A local store that’s community oriented should have people who live in the community working in it, Khabo said, that way they’re just as invested as the customer.
“Probably 90 per cent of our associates live in the area and the success of our store hinges on that,” he said. “People rely on this as a job and one thing that drives me to make this store successful is knowing that we can make sure they have a place to work and retire.”
Giving back to the community they serve through fundraisers is another tenent of RONA+, says Khabo.
“Giving back is huge, it’s all that we’re about,” he said. “We have to give back to the community because it’s the community that keeps us in business. We’re stewards, we’re here, but it’s not really our store. It belongs to the community.”
Currently the Home Sweet Home fundraiser is going on at the store with a goal of raising $5,000 for Newmarket-based Rose of Sharon, an organization dedicated to providing free counselling, education and resources to prenatal and parenting young mothers and their families in York Region.
“We were so grateful to be the charity of choice,” said Deanne Kukulewich, executive director of Rose of Sharon. “We have very young moms who come to our programs and we have two 14-year-old mothers and the contributions are helping them.”
With the cost of living continuing to rise, Kukulewich said the fundraiser will have a major impact for the organization.
“We serve 300 young pregnant and parenting mothers,” she said. “We offer an on-site high school, a food pantry, Rosie's closet with infant baby clothes, and we have a nutritionist on site that offers cooking classes because some of these moms are so young that they’ve had their families cooking for them.”
That community aspect of RONA is what the company prides themselves on, said Malcolm Parks, senior vice-president, stores, RONA inc. That’s why they launched the Home Sweet Home campaign on Sept. 1 in an effort to collect donations to support the most vulnerable population through charities.
“One thing that makes RONA so special is our sense of community,” he said. “We pride ourselves on being a force for good in the community. This year is the 25th anniversary of our RONA Foundation, through the work of this foundation we want to show up in meaningful ways.
The grand opening of RONA+ comes on the heels of a rebrand as Lowe’s across the country transition into RONA+ stores.
“This is part of our brand new banner to be part of the big RONA family that was created to improve our Canadian shoppers’ home improvement,” said Parks. “With this transformation, we’re not only making a significant financial investment locally, we’re also bringing the beloved Canadian operated RONA brand to a new and exciting era.”
