Windsor resident receives microgrant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Shelbey Hernandez

Associate Managing Editor

 

During the Windsor Soup event, a Windsor resident received $3,100 for his project Joint Ventures Unlimited.

Justice Fournier, the creator of JVU, was one of four presenters during Windsor Soup. The micro-granting event was hosted at the Walkerville Brewery on March 22 and was sponsored by Libro Credit Union and hosted by Enactus Windsor. Enactus Windsor is a student-run organization that works to help youth with entrepreneurial efforts. This was the ninth Windsor Soup.

Although Fournier currently doesn’t have a location, JVU was previously located at the Sandwich Team Action Group and will be moving to a new location on Chatham Street. His organization looks to help those who were “left behind by the system” and give them a place for positive growth. In his location, he hopes to provide a healthy environment for youth to have nutrition, training, life-coaching, supplements, motivational speaking, music and art. His company will work with sub-companies such as Just Training, Just Nutrition, Just Supplements and Just Desserts that would provide revenue to JVU by selling their products and services within the JVU platform.

Other presenters included Jessica Apolloni and Katie Stokes from Boost Your City, John Jones from Canadian Council on Food Sovereignty and Health and Joanna Conrad from Rebound Life Choices Program.

Boost Your City is an event that gives one business the chance to “work with a team of qualified professionals” for two days and receive a marketing and promotion package worth $20,000 for free. It gives people a chance to fix up their resumes and make industry connections. They aim to help smaller businesses.

The Canadian Council on Food Sovereignty and Health looked to warn Canadians about government corruption regarding farming practices. They wanted Canadians to stand up against the corruption and support local farmers and agriculture-based merchants. Jones said there are five agricultural practices approved by Health Canada which he said are “dangerous.”

As for the Rebound Life Choices Program, Conrad has a 10-week program that helps troubled youth through “interactive activities, behavior rehearsals, guest speakers and video clips.”

As someone who came from the Sandwich Team Action Group, he said he is excited to provide something new for Windsor that will help youth in a way that has never been done before. He has already taken some people under his wing, such as Shahin Khesro, a 16-year-old student who because of Fournier, is working on starting his own company called Just Socks.

“This is an idea where I’ve went through a lot of pain and a lot of hardship and a lot of struggle to get to it,” said Fournier.

Fournier said he plans to use the money to pay the rental fee on the building as well as necessary equipment such as printers to print business cards for youth attending the establishment, shelving units and products.

According to Peter Corio, the project manager of Windsor Soup, the previous event had 200 attendees but this event had 30 more people. Like the many other attendees who voted for Fournier, Corio had positive thoughts about the JVO presenter.

“Justice is a great presenter,” said Corio. “He works on Enactus on one of our projects also so he’s someone who really wants to make a difference in our community and it really seems like he isn’t going to stop until he achieves that.”

The next Windsor Soup will be held at the Libro Centre in Amherstburg on May 3.