Markham entrepreneur, student sing praises of summer job grant

Too Good General Store on Unionville's Main Street hired three students with help of thousands of dollars from government

Yorkregion.com
August 20, 2019
Jeremy Grimaldi

When Sarah Gratta set out on her own and started the Too Good General Store on Unionville’s Main Street she never banked on remaining open for 12 hours a day during the busiest summer days.

But that’s where the shop currently stands, employing three students to help her manage the long hours, coupled with the bookkeeping, ordering and cleaning she does herself.

“It’s more work than I ever thought it was going to be,” she said. “But with all the festivals and tourists, we stay open some nights until 11 p.m..”

Without those three students Gratta said she’d be in the shop, which sells Canadian, often small-batch and handcrafted goods, almost constantly.

“Without them my family wouldn’t see me or I would be cutting costs elsewhere,” she explained.

That’s where she said the government’s summer jobs grant steps in, covering about $5,000 worth of the $10,000 she paid the students this summer.

“This way we have someone in the back so there’s no theft, someone in the front and another at the cash,” she added. “Without the grant it wouldn’t be possible.”

Emma Zukow, 18, a former Bill Crothers student who lives just minutes away and is heading to Dalhousie University in September to study integrated science, said she’s learned life skills she’d be unable to attain elsewhere.

“Friends who work at chain outlets don’t know why sales are made and the background of the business, but here’s it’s a communal process,” she said. “We are open with each other and we talk about ordering, increasing sales and products, reading customers and setting goals.”

She’s unsure if she would have been able to work in this sort of entrepreneurial environment without the grant.

To highlight what the Liberals are calling the program’s success, both Markham-Thornhill MP Mary Ng and Minister of Employment Patty Hajdu held a news conference at Gratta’s shop on Aug. 14.

They highlighted how the grant has been used by 8,000 small businesses in Canada and helped pay for 19,500 jobs.

"Employers benefit from new ideas and our economy thrives," said the minister of small business.

When asked how the grant helps at-risk youth mentioned by John Tory and Justin Trudeau a day before in relation to mounting gun crime in the GTA, Hadju said some of the program's leftover funds go directly to at-risk young people.