BUSINESS PROFILE:

Indian Brook Role Model Receives Aboriginal Entrepreneurship Award

Annie Ronnie Paul was extremely surprised when she heard about the award her business was receiving.

Annie’s Canteen and Wooden Flowers, which is located in Indian Brook, was recently honoured with an Aboriginal Entrepreneurship Award.

“When I was told I was nominated I didn’t think I had a chance winning with a little business like this,” said Paul. “When they told me I’d won I said, ‘There must be some mistake or something.’ I couldn’t believe it.”

Paul has been running a small canteen, which is attached to her home, for 34 years, and now knows almost everyone in the area.

“It’s a little store, and I sell the necessities – what people run out of,” she said. “I have things like bread, milk, pop, chips, coffee, tea, cigarettes and candy.

“I make wooden flowers. I just made 100 for Mount St. Vincent University.”

Some of Pauls’ flowers were taken to the Vatican, and she has a picture on her living room wall, showing both her flowers and Pope John Paul ll.

Paul said that she gets a lot of calls for flowers, but they are more expensive to make now than when she first began, and she has been slowed down by arthritis. She has hired someone to help in the canteen, and hopes to find time to make some more flowers soon.

She had been planning to attend the award ceremony, which was held in Moncton in September, but her sister in Eskasoni, who was not feeling well, called and requested her company.

“I felt bad for not going, but if I hadn’t gone to my sister I would have felt bad too,” she said.

The award event was designed to highlight successes in the Aboriginal business community, while presenting role models to other aspiring and existing Aboriginal entrepreneurs.

“These Aboriginal entrepreneurs are actively involved in making their communities economically stronger and more vibrant places to work and live,” said Joseph McGuire, Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA). “This recognition is well deserved.”