Nuanced. - 89. Sharon Bond-Hogg: Indigenous Cuisine & the Kekuli Cafe

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Aaron and Sharon sit down to discuss her Indigenous cuisine business - the Kekuli Cafe.  Sharon Bond-Hogg was born and raised in Merritt, British Columbia, and is a member of the Nooaitch First Nation. Sharon is married to Darren Hogg of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and they are the founders and owners of Kekuli Aboriginal Foods Inc., also known as Kekuli Café. They jointly own the Kekuli Café West in Kelowna and the Kekuli Bannock Food Truck,  "Don't Panic…We Have Bannock!" Sharon is graduating with her MBA from the Beedie School of Business and Simon Fraser University this year. Sharon is also the owner and chief executive officer of Kekuli Café Properties Inc, where she brings her passion and vision for an Indigenous QSR to communities across Canada. Learn more about the Kekuli Cafe: https://www.kekulicafe.com/Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Brilliant. First, I'd like to thank Tim McElpine for letting me use his space. He's incredibly supportive. But to get started, Sharon, I've been very eager to connect with you. I visited a few caculi cafes. I'm a huge fan. You are a person who took your dream. You made it a reality. I can't imagine that's easy. Would you mind introducing yourself and talking a little bit about the business that you started? Sure. Well, thank you, Erin, for having me. And my name is Sharon Bond. I'm from the Noahe-H-Indium band. It's just outside of Merit, B.C. We're a small band of about 260 members. It's between Spence's Bridge and Merit. It's one of the remote communities out that way that was actually affected by all the floods as well and fires in the last few years. And I own Kakuli Cafe West Colona. And I also am the CEO and founder of Kukuli. Cafe and Kukuli Cafe properties where we're now franchising. Incredible.

You wanted to do this for a long time. That's my understanding. This was something you wanted to do. You wanted to bring food to the community. You wanted to share indigenous cuisine. Can you tell us a little bit about how this all got started for you? Yeah. Wow.

Well, 2004, I was making Banach for my students in the school district. So we would have Banach and tea. I'd get the parents into the school district. It was just a great way to get parents. together and see what their kids are doing. It's something I never got to experience as a young child grown-ups, I guess. How do you get your parents to come to the school to see what your kids are doing? So I would do Banach and tea for the parents and for the students, and food always brings people

together. So after, you know, every end of June, you get laid off from the school. And so then I decided, hey, you know, let's do Banach at a locally bent on Westside days. So we made Bannick. My friend said, hey, we have a concession stand. You can use that for a few years at the local car wash here at West Bank First Nation. And we started making Bannock out of the car wash. And we did that for about three years.

And we did a business plan as well. So it took a few years to do the business plan. And we opened our doors with our first restaurant on 2009. Wow. Yeah, and it was quite the process, but, you know, we worked, we had full-time jobs, working at the car wash, selling Bannick, marketing Bannick, doing the business plan. And then he went to work at a local corporate, whatever, Tim Hortons. I went to go work at another store, Starbucks, and we all still work full-time jobs. So we did all this because we wanted to get out of debt.

We wanted to get some experience in the coffee shop world and, you know, of course, survive. So that's kind of how we came to opening Kakuli. We had some of the experience and just perseverance of pushing through those first few years of getting our store open. It's funny that you say Tim Hortons, because I see the potential with the business. I can see what it's delivering for people in the time where we're talking about reconciliation, in the time where people are interested in learning about indigenous culture, it seems like there's a gap between the opportunities for people to experience the food and the culture and the language and the actual opportunity to go into a business and experience it. You hear the question a lot, like, how do I get involved in reconciliation?

My dream would be that that question doesn't need to be asked, and it's because businesses like yours fix the issue, because you give people the opportunity to try things. How did Banick become something that you were passionate about sharing? because it is such a hallmark within indigenous communities. Yet outside of indigenous communities, it's incredibly difficult to get your hands on. Right. Yeah. I just felt that, you know, in every culture, there's a brand. In every culture, they all have their different types of brands, fried bread, baked,

and, you know, just it goes back hundreds of years. And with, you know, coming up with Banach for, just because it was my passion to make it for my students. And, you know, I grew up on homemade breads and stuff like that. My mother, I was, you know, I'd help her make bread in the house. And, you know, so it just has this really nice home style feeling to it. And when I cook or, you know, even my menu at the cafe, it's just a lot of fun, fast, casual style foods, you know, that people love to eat. And the Cooley Cafe, you know, we've just created a menu where, you know, it's, it gives you some indigenous history. It gives you that, you know, there's a lot of fun things that we've done over the years and to come to this part of, you know, where we're at today with the, you know, Indian tacos that are made with Bannock or fry bread or, you know, I put a twist on all my food because it has to be a little.

little different than what everyone else is doing out there. And there's indigenous restaurants, you know, they're popping up all across Canada now. It's something I could never find 20 years ago when I was doing my business plan. There was a couple smaller ones. And I also give credit to Dolly Watts for opening those doors back in the day. She opened up Lilliget Beast House on Davy Street in Vancouver. And I got to meet her once at the Indigenous Awards in Vancouver at one point. And so it was an honor and now to see indigenous foods are just are popping up across Canada and we're able to give that you know because every culture is so different and we all have our own foods from wherever we're living right you know in my territory you know it's a lot of Saskatoon berries

and venison and salmon and you know the prairies have buffalo and you know with the West Coast has salmon and seafood, and so everyone's so different all across Canada, and we're able to bring our culture, you know, to the people, and they could come in and enjoy, whether it be a piece of Bannock, a venison, you know, taco or something, or a wild salmon taco. It's just always nice to see people want to come in and try something different. And with us, we've kind of made this, you know, we're trying, we're working hard at being the place to come to, rather than, you know, going to big corporate places, you know, we want to be that, hey, I'm going for my spirit bear coffee at Kikuli because it's organic, it's fresh, it's,

you know, it's locally indigenous owned. And the spirit bear coffee company is also indigenous owned as well. So to support them too, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's really nice to have that partnership. Brilliant. Can you tell us about some of the foods? Some of the ones maybe that stand out to you, you have a wide variety of different foods, and as you said, you put a twist on it. Can you share that with listeners?

Perhaps they're driving through over the summer or the winter. What can they expect to find it? And what are the hallmarks for you that you're really proud of? Or maybe that took a lot of work for you to kind of come up with? Yeah. I guess her favorite dish is the Indian taco. So it's just something no other restaurant sells. You can't get it at McDonald's.

So it's kind of neat that, hey, I want something different today, right? You know, all of our food is fresh, hand cut, and everything's done at the cafe. So having something like that, like Benison, which is deer, yeah, it just really has a different twist to, you know, what everyone else does, and it's just something different. We do salmon, wild sockeye salmon for our tacos. We do beef and chicken and all of our sauces and vinaigrettes, like I do a Saskatoonberry vinaigrette. I do Saskatoonberry barbecue sauce.

So we have these different things that we can put on our foods that just kind of give it something a little different, right? Yeah, you've talked a little bit about the grind, the amount of work that it took starting kind of doing it out. aside what sounds like a car wash and building up and growing. It seems like that can be a struggle for some people, the idea of that it's not going to happen overnight, that it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of growth, a lot of investment in yourself and trying new recipes, changing, modifying, developing a business plan. It's a journey. Can you talk a little bit about

that and what that journey was like for you and what you got out of it? Yeah, the whole starting up a business is not as easy as I thought it was going to be because I've always been an entrepreneur since I was a very young girl. I was always trying to think of ways to, you know, make money and, you know, how could I, you know, make a living? And so when I started our cafe, you know, the very, the first three to five years, like, if you're not working in your business, then you aren't going to make it. You're going to fail within the first three years for sure. And Darren and I, we just worked in our business, you know, 16 hour days, lived it, breathed it, ate it. And yeah, we just worked in our business. We, and working in your business, you also learn, you know,

you learn systems and you learn procedures and you just, you know, there's a lot of things that you will learn that will help you grow your business and to become stronger. And another big part of it was human resources, right? You know, you really need to care about your employees. You need to take care of them. And back in the day when we started, it was eight, nine, ten bucks an hour, I think back in 2009 when people were getting jobs in restaurants and cafes, right? It was, you know, it was lower. wages back then. And now it's double, double that today. The wages are double more than double. And so you need to take care of your staff. You need to treat them with respect. And, you know,

we carry the seven teachings in our restaurant, you know, for everything that we do, like the seven grandfather teachings with respect and, you know, humility and bravery. We've been through it all. And we decided to use those values in our restaurant because, you know, just we want it to be the place to, you know, where you feel valued and you feel respected when you come in. And even right from our customers to our staff, it's just really important to treat people with respect and, you know, and staying humble and everything at the same time. Absolutely. Why?

Why work so hard in a business? It can be hard for people to go from the nine to five mindset to building something where the hours aren't followed, that you're thinking about it as you go to bed and you wake up and you're thinking of it. Why? What did you see in this business? What did you see that you were delivering the people needed, that you were bringing value to the community, to your customers, to your employees?

What was your why? there's been a lot of whys over the years and i feel that um now you know the why is i get up every day there's a job there for someone every day and you know we hire a lot of youth in our in our companies you know and even my franchisee was a youth he was 18 when he started with us and now he wants two restaurants, cuckooly cafes. And I think it's just having something that someone is passionate about where they are able to now take caculi and create that, have that passion and create something for their people, their community. And it's kind of like a, I guess a dominole effect. You know, I loved it so much that I, and I was able to hire, you know, indigenous youth.

Anybody who wants to work, right? Like we just needed to have a place where people could call home kind of thing, right? You could go, people walk in right away and are like, oh, my God, this is so cool. We have indigenous art. We have drums. We have a picture of a pit house so people know what a cuckooly is. Having, you know, people who are inspirational that take their passion. and it just glows. People love our, love our staff. They say we have great staff who are kind and, you know, we can't train personalities. But when you're hiring people who have passion and kindness and humility, you know, that goes a long way for your restaurant or for your business, for that matter. You know, like it's just, you just need to have that passion and be real and humble.

Yeah. There's something unique about indigenous entrepreneurship, and I'm interested in your thoughts on that. When I think about the ideas that maybe are percolated in our society, there's perhaps a group of people who've participated less over the last hundred years. And the argument is that we're missing out on the art, the culture, the language, the cuisine, the community, that they can provide for other people. And right now, as we talk about reconciliation, that seems to be really at the forefront of people's minds, is what is the art? What is the language? What is the culture? What am I missing out on? And it seems like something that you're now able to export is a bit of that culture. And so I'm just curious as to what you think it means to be an indigenous entrepreneur. Do you think that you come with a different skill set? Do you think that when you face a barrier, you're more apt to want to go over it? What do you think some of the differences are in terms of being an entrepreneur for yourself? have looked more at barriers 20 years ago. I felt that, you know, who's going to want to come to an indigenous restaurant for that matter, right? I would think who knows what Bannick is. I just felt that there was more barriers 20 years ago. And me, I just, I guess I felt like I just would push my way through all of that. There is always comments, you know, oh, an indigenous or, well, we didn't use the word indigenous.

We used First Nation or Indian, right? And, you know, they would always think it was, it wasn't owned by an indigenous person. It might have been a band-owned business or, you know, so to really try to get it out there that it was an, a business owned by an indigenous woman, for that matter, you know, and I, I guess, I never really thought too much about it, but I just would be, I would persevere and, you know, pushing that it was a First Nations owned business and it was First Nations food. I have First Nations language

throughout our cafe and and right down to our marketing on our bannock boxes and all that kind of thing, right? So we just needed to, I guess, kind of, we have to work really hard to kind of get to where we're at today with being an indigenous business and having an indigenous woman CEO and founder of this type of business. It was a lot of work, I guess, to get to the top because, you know, even trying to get a credit card or a loan or something back, you know, 15 years ago even, it was hard for me to get all that. Like, we had to do everything like the hard way. I had to work three jobs. We had to save money. We had to pay off debt, you know, that kind of thing over the years. So to get through all those systemic barriers, especially being a woman

in business and nobody trusts an indigenous woman in business because they don't think we know what we're doing. You know, I just plowed over that and just said, nope, not giving up, I'll figure it out. And I did that even day to day operations running a cafe and working in my business when I was working in the restaurant. And, you know, I had to make sure that every little thing was perfect. and I didn't want, if something happened and nobody liked the Bannick or it was Doey or something happened, I'm going to fix it.

You know, I had to be the one to fix it because I didn't want to lose customers, obviously. So I had to really figure out ways to, you know, keep that customer and keep them happy and keep them coming back. And I would, you know, we would have to train our staff. And this is kind of where all the systems would start coming up. And we, you know, the first week we opened our doors, people thought we were a franchise. Oh, you guys must be from, you know, Eastern Canada. And we're like, oh, no, I'm, I live here in West Bank.

And, you know, so we already had this look of a franchise. And, you know, so from that week as well, I thought, oh, one day we're going to open up another one. And it really made you work hard at trying to figure out all the systems because we didn't have someone to really call and to see, are we doing this okay? Is this okay? There's not another indigenous restaurant out there that we were able to look at and, you know, analyze and see, you know, what are they doing? So there wasn't much there to choose from. So we just kind of worked away at doing our own thing. And I guess by 2014, we opened up another restaurant in Merritt, B.C., downtown and that, you know, was the start, we thought, we're going to treat this just like

a franchise, whatever that may be. We didn't even know exactly what a franchise. We knew that it was going to be two restaurants that kind of worked the same. So we did our research. We opened up the Merritt store and we just tried to run everything the same, but we were running them both. And so we were doing a lot of driving back and forth between West Bank and merit and wow it was a lot of work I'll never forget and just trying to figure everything out like how do we make two restaurants run the same I guess you know I could have hopefully called up CEO McDonald's hey we need some help you know how do you do this I know we figured it all out ourselves we had to figure it out the hard way and we opened up we we actually opened up

2014. Then I sold the Merritt store in 2018 to Elijah who now owns it. And then a few years later, we said, hey, let's open up another one in Camloops. Another opportunity came along. So we opened up our third location in Camloops. And yeah, that one took, Elijah bought that one as well. Another, you know, he's a youth. And to have two restaurants by the age of 25 or 6 years old. he's uh he's really doing amazing and we're just happy that you know we found a person who has that passion and you know we're always collaborating together and working together um and then we opened up a fourth location at the okinawana college here in colonna and uh yeah now we're just starting you know to we're getting tons of inquiries for more hoolies

So we'll see where that goes. Fantastic. Ever a point in time where you didn't know if you were going to be able to persevere, ever a time where you were maybe had some doubts or was like, this is a lot. This can't be fair. This isn't, this isn't okay. I want a break.

I want to be able to breathe. Did you ever have to go over anything? I think the first three to five years in business, you know, it was kind of like that because we were the ones that. had to do everything, right? You know, I'm the ones washing the floors at 8, 9 o'clock at night in the restaurant, you know, I look back and I think, hey, maybe that was a Carol Burnett moment.

I don't know, but you're in there mopping the floors and then you're crying, oh, my God, I don't want to do this. I can. This would feel hard. And then someone, I don't know, we kind of figured out, hey, why aren't we hiring more people to do this? Let's hire more people, right? So, because I think we only had four to six employees or something in our very, very early stages.

And we thought we had to do everything. I never thought of getting other people to do it for me. It took a year or something like that to do that. So. Probably a key to your success, though, right? Yeah, yeah. It's a big part of, you know, letting go of some things, right? and here we are today, you know, just we're working on our business now

and we're working on, you know, expanding, we're working on the franchise systems. We're, you know, we're kind of out of the cafe part where I don't have to go in and make Bannock anymore because I've got this amazing, I always call them the Kikuli crew, kind of like the Motley crew, but they're the Kakuli crew. And they have really, we've really taught them to, you know, follow our systems and they have the heart and the soul and they have the passion for Kikuli. So they've just been able to, you know, run the restaurant like I would with me not being there as much anymore because I have a lot on my plate right now.

with the growing franchise and going to school and, you know, just working on things that just keep me very busy. You mentioned the branding. Can you talk a little bit about that? Where does Kikuli Cafe come from? Can you tell us a bit about your slogan, how you're tying in the culture? Because I think you do a very good job of making the language more accessible. I think that's the challenge we get into when things are renamed a completely helclimation.

language or a huklamylam language, the challenge is that it's a completely different language for some people. And then there's a lack of desire to want to switch over to that, where your process seems very, it's accessible. It's a step one. It's not the whole enchilada all at once. And I think that that's valuable when we're having the reconciliation conversation. When we're saying, we want you to learn, we want you to be open minded, it makes it accessible. I think the idea that you deliver on apps like DoorDash and skip the dishes. It makes it less intimidating. Some people prefer to order on those apps.

This makes it easier for them to say, hey, you know what? I'll give this a try. I'll learn a little bit, something new, but I'm still at home. I'm still safe. Some people are intimidated by change, and I think that you do an excellent job of making the culture accessible to people. So can you tell us a little bit about the brand, the decision to make it accessible on apps like DoorDash and Skip the Dishes?

Yeah. I guess, yeah, people, you know, like, I'm trying to think like I've been to Vancouver and you go to restaurants in Vancouver and you know you get different languages and you're looking at the menu and you're like you know you're not quite sure people ask oh well what is this

so I think just ensuring that everybody feels comfortable with a different language is important and us using, you know, some of our language from my territory, you know, we acknowledge the West Bank or the Okanagan territory on our front door. We acknowledge it and merit on the front door, you know, the Thompson language from that area. And I think it's just a, it was a touch on how to let people know that they're in an indigenous territory, whether on either First Nations land or in a, or in the territory, you know, our restaurant in Merritt is not on native land, but, you know,

we're on a spot where, you know, hundreds of years ago, our First Nations people set up camp in that area, you know, until they got cleared out of the downtown merit and put to the outskirts, I guess, if that's the outskirts, you know, so to have that blame, I guess, you know, to have our language out there, I think, is really important. And to put it into our business, it just gives it that, you know, I just like people to know that, hey, this is a First Nations restaurant. And this is really cool. You know, we get people from all over the world that come to Kikuli.

We've been lucky enough to be on, like, you've got to eat here, which is film or which is shown in like seven or eight different countries, I guess. around the world and, you know, people will come and say, oh, I saw you on this, you got to eat here. So, you know, they're excited and they want to try something different, right? You know, when they come to Canada, then they set foot here knowing that they're, you know, and they know and they're respecting that they are on First Nations territory as soon as they come into Vancouver or when they get off the, you know, the plane in here in the Okanagan, right? they're that they're on indigenous land.

So it's it's really nice that there's that respect when people are coming from around the world. And they're wanting to, you know, see indigenous, feel indigenous and taste indigenous food. Yeah. Don't panic. We have bannock. Probably one of the best slogans I've ever heard. Who came out? Who has to take responsibility for this? Well, we started out at the car wash back in the day.

and we used to have, you know, people would come up and we used to have this customer, oh, I'm in a panic for banic. And, you know, so it kind of all rhymed and it all kind of came out to don't panic. We have banic. And, yeah, I trademarked it. Trademarked our whole cuckooly, trademarked the slogan,

and we just did all that legal stuff so that we had, I guess, control of it, I guess, or whatever for marketing. and for the business. And, yeah, it's just, just took right off. I'm glad that it was just one of those slogans that, that, yeah, that people could catch on right away. Because every time I hear even in a movie or a show or anything,

and I'm like, and you'll hear, don't panic, and I'm thinking, eat panic. That's awesome. That's awesome. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. Every time I hear, don't panic. I'm waiting.

I think it's safe. You've mentioned Elijah a few times. It's a lot of work to start a business, which you did. It's a lot of work to start a second business, which you did. The fear is always that it's just yours. And you've found somebody who shares that same spark, that same passion, that same work mentality of putting in a lot of hours, a lot of effort, to bring something to others.

What did that mean to you to perhaps meet a kindred spirit? Wow. Yeah. Just, wow, how does that even happen? You know, I think it's, must be like feet, I guess, right? Like, there's something there that, you know, to have someone that wants to take on Kakuli, even right? Even right now I have another youth I'm working on. And he works at our restaurant here in West he's been with us since he was 15 and now he just turned 20 and this boy has just just he's reminding me of Elijah so much and I'm like oh my god like this this is the next cuckooly I'm sure he's going to have the next caculi is my goal um he's been in there for five years he has went from the bottom to the top like a for a 20 year old to have to be that mature and, you know, to take on this role and he has a wife and a child already, right? And he just, he just has the whole, you know, demeanor and the whole, you know, package, I guess, to, to be the next Kikuli franchisee.

Well, you credit this to, though. You, like, this is so unique. How many businesses can take credit for building entrepreneurs? I think that, yeah, that's what we're doing. Who takes credit for it? I don't know. I would say me, but, you know, I hate saying that because I'm not. That's not who I am.

But yes, my husband and I both work really hard at, you know, building people up. And, you know, we always say to our staff work smart. If there is an easier way, let us know because there is things that we can change in the systems so that we don't have to work hard. We just have to work smarter. That's all. And yeah, so building up these young people to, they also have this work ethic. And when I hire people, I go, oh, so who are your parents? what do your parents do? And always, you know, my dad's a welder.

My mom does this and my dad is this. And, you know, like, you could see where they're coming from, right? They have a very strong work ethic background. Like, their parents work hard, you know. And when the kids see their parents working hard, you know, they work hard and they don't give up and they just keep going and going and, you know. and I look at my kids, you know, they, they are both educated beyond, you know, they've got masters and journeyman carpenter, you know, and they're just, I guess they look at, I look at my parents and they worked hard to survive, so they had to fish, hunt, gather,

and so I look at that, and they never gave up, and then when I, you know, teaching my kids, You know, that schooling is important, and then I'm finally doing it 30 years later. You know, I'd say they inspired me as well for me to get an education. But, you know, in all those years, I've always worked. And I know how hard it is, right, to make ends meet and to, I've been there. I've, you know, I had been on social assistance when I was young and pregnant. and, you know, that kind of thing back, you know, in the 80s. But I always knew that I was going to go somewhere.

I didn't know what it was. I would be flipping through a newspaper going, oh, what am I going to do for a job? You know, I love to cook and I tried, you know, we did catering back in the day. And so maybe that was a bit of a start to the whole having a restaurant. I had like three or four different business plans to have a restaurant. and basket-making business, a chocolate-making business, a fond dutch business. You know, like I've had business plans over the years and finally to have something like this to come about

and be a part of this whole, I guess, economy we're creating. I've created, you know, hundreds of jobs over the last 15, 16 years and to still be a part of that, you know, is, yeah, pretty, it's pretty awesome. And hopefully just keeps on going. Yeah, that's my suspicion is that we have these communities that really understand how to be resilient, how to overcome adversity, how to look at long, hard days as an opportunity to grow and not as unfair. There's certain people that look at a long day and go,

that's not for me. I want to know that I'm starting at 8.30 and I'm done at 4.30 and I want an hour break. There's other people who are willing to persevere when times get tough because they can see a long-term benefit. And I think that that's the untapped potential of indigenous communities. There's a work ethic there that I think we're going to see over the next 20 years. And I think that your business is a testament to that. I think you're curating those individuals and giving them a space and giving them the opportunities and it's coming through in the opportunities you creating for them. And I think just kudos to you for being able to bring that about in people because we don't see it very often. I don't hear other franchise businesses being able to do

something like that. It's we're at the top and the employees are the employees, your ability to for people to want to be like Elijah, everybody there now knows who he is and knows that that's something that could be their future. And that inspires people to think bigger. And I think that that's something when we talk about brands, we talk about the marketing and how we're to sell a product, but we don't talk about how to inspire the staff. And Costco isn't perfect, but they treat their staff properly. They inspire them to say, we're going to treat you like people. We're going to give you reasonable hours. We're going to treat you like a person. And I think when you do that, we don't know what people's potentials are until we open some of those doors.

And I think that that's what you're doing. And so I'm so excited to see what the future holds. Can you tell us what are some things we can expect in the future? Well, our, I mean, you know, since we've been working more on the franchise now, we deal with so many, like, I don't know, five or tenth requests every day. And it's following up, you know, and so we're hoping to have another franchise open this year. We also now are looking into other areas with our franchise where it's more like the one we have. have at the Okanagan College where it's an amazing coffee bar with our baked goods, all of our fresh baked goods in these kind of style kiosks, I guess, within universities or colleges. So our goal is, you know, that's the way we're going and we have the systems in

place. We're working on it to always be, you know, to be stronger and to be amazing. I guess, everything we do, just trying to be amazing and work and work hard and, and, and adapt your business model. Yes, and yes, and we have so many areas to go. It's just hard to say, like, what's, what's going to happen and when. Yeah. You mentioned your education. I'm interested to understand entrepreneurs often feel disconnected. from the education sector. Many people, they start from the ground up, they work hard,

and it's by pure force, by pure will, that they're able to get to where they go. Many of them end up with a feeling that they didn't get the MBA, they didn't get the education, and so they kind of see those individuals as different from themselves and maybe have a part of themselves that don't feel like they fit in because they don't have the credentials. you now are able to go get these credentials and it's so interesting for you to have the practical experience and then go in to a more theoretical institution and talk about the ideas and talk about the language. Can you talk a little bit about choosing to go back to school, choosing to attend a university and get the skills from both worlds?

Yeah, I am so lucky. you know having been in business for the last 15 years and you know and 10 years ago I'd be like oh yeah um you know I don't think I ever need school I'm you know cruising along in my in my business and you know I feel like I'm learning everything not that I knew everything because we were always learning and when I this came across my desk to go to school and this was during the pandemic. And I thought, wow, should I do this? Like, you know, like, so I, you know,

mentioned it to my kids and my husband. And I thought, you know, should I do this? Should I go back to school? Like, this is like, you know, I've only, I've only been to grade 12, right? And I've been out of school for so long. I mean, I've done a lot of different things over my life for school and whatever certificates.

and all that kind of thing, and business classes and courses. But to have something like this, I thought, well, I'll try it. If I can't fill out the application, then I probably don't deserve to go. So I filled out this huge application. It was a lot of work. It took a few weeks to do it. And I submitted it, you know, and I got an interview with the SFU. And I got accepted into this.

program. And yeah, I was so excited, I guess. And what did it mean to you to get accepted or to go through that process? I was like, oh, my God. They thought that I was smart enough to be here. You know, yeah. And I remember the very first day I bawled my eyes out because I was so scared. It's like, oh, my God, I can't do this. This is going to be so hard. What am I doing? Is this right? Like, I don't know if I'm going to be as smart as everyone else because I just felt, you know, that I've been out of school for way too long, but, you know, here I am in my 50s, went back to school. I was inspired by my uncle, Art Sam, he's in New Iich, and he went back to school, I believe, in his 50s or 60s or something. And he got a, he got a bachelor of, I think it was business or something in Merritt. you know, and they've all done it. And I thought, okay, I can do it. So yeah, here I am.

I'm almost finished my second year and I feel good. I'm glad that I've done it. And, you know, I'm just excited that I guess these credentials that are going to go behind my name, I'm like, whoa. I'm in business and now I'm going to have an MBA. Yeah. I'd say I'm pretty. proud of myself for actually sticking it out because there are times and I know there is times when you're doing a program like that where you just feel like there's there is no flipping way for this that you're going to get through this part of it or you know like there's a lot of ups and downs and stuff because you're scared but yeah just have the courage to do it and and

just know that you're that you just kind of have to relax yourself and just you know say I can do this. I'm going to push through and I'm going to get her done. So yeah, here I am. Almost done. I just can't believe that after everything you overcame, that school would ever be, like to linger on that idea that you've started the business, that all those people are in school to understand how to do what you've already done. And to think that that's the process that intimidates you. I totally understand why. It's just, it's interesting to think that that could be the intimidating part. Yes. I felt that, you know, and I also forgot to mention this, that when I was doing, when this whole schooling thing came across my desk, right before that, I had received my mom

and my grandmother's residential school records from their, from St. George's residential school. And so I was looking through my grandmother's first, because, you know, she was, she went there. and I was like, wow, she only made it to grade like seven or eight or something. And then I looked at my mother's and she went to grade six, I think. But she kept running away. And when you're looking at your parents and grandparents' residential school records and you're like, oh, my God. Like, you know, they kept, every time she should have been maybe a higher upgrade, they'd put her back a grade. And I don't know if that was because she kept running away from it is what I understand.

So they just kept, yeah, you know, pushing her back. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to, that was another part of another reason why I'm going to, I'm going to get my MBA because my mom and grandmother didn't get that. And I can never blame my mother or my dad, my mom or my dad for, you know, the way things were when we were growing up because they had so much trauma. my mother had a lot of trauma. My grandmother had trauma. She didn't think she was going to be a mother again

because her daughter got shipped off to residential school. So then by the time my mom was 14, my grandmother moved away to America because she didn't think she was ever going to see her daughter again. So my mom ran away from residential school, met my dad, and then had me. And, you know, I think of those scenarios that what they could have went through what could have happened and you know there was just no um there was no inspiration or

motivation for them right and so i guess i that would have motivated me to like i'm going to do this for them right i'm going to get a degree and hopefully something will um good will come of it so that you know their names live on and you know they fought for us and so now we have to fight for them, whether it be through our business, through schooling, just fighting for, you know, fighting for their, for their rights. And I think that's a whole another story, right? Yeah. But what you said is really beautiful because you think about the sacrifices that people have to make, the effort that they have to put in for their children, all for a better life. So many different families from so many different walks of life have

traveled around the world to try and give their children a better life, endured unconscionable things to be able to survive for their children. And it's the onus is on the children then to build upon that legacy and to build something better and to improve the circumstances for others, which is exactly what you're doing. So I'm wondering if you can help enlighten people, how do we move in the right direction? You've obviously faced tough times. You've bet on yourself in your business.

now in school, how do people live up to their best potential? How do they make the most of these years that they have in their life? I think once you get to a certain point in your life, maybe I always think, what am I going to do next? What am I going to do for myself, from my well-being? How can I, I always say how can I be a better, person. And, you know, I think what motivates or inspires me is making sure that my kids, my grandkids are going to have a place to feel safe, like in this country, in their communities.

You know, we want people to feel safe. We want them, you know, to be able to continue. to learn their culture, teach the culture, you know, show people that we are still here as indigenous people on this land. This is, you know, you're in my ancestors' territory. You know, they fought hard to where we are today. They fought for us to get to this point. And I'm fighting this hard so my grandkids could get above where I'm at. today and just, you know, to keep going and, you know, our indigenous people, they're taking away a lot of, you know, their rights as being a status first nation, a status Indian in this, in this country.

And, you know, my grandkids have, you know, partial, they're not status because, you know, there's the whole bloodline thing, right, that's going down the line. and those are getting taken away from them. So we're just kind of becoming, you know, what's the word, becoming extinct to that matter, right? We need to ensure that our kids and grandkids, that they have their rights and that, you know, they need to know that, you know,

I'm fighting for their rights today. They're going to need that when they're going to need that when they're like my age, right? And I'm not going to be here. So hopefully they're able to still fight for their rights in the land, and hopefully all that is still there for them. Let's hope something good comes in the next, you know, five, 10, 15 years for our young people.

And, you know, 5% of our population is indigenous, and half of them are youth. They're the ones that are going to be making that, you know, place for for for themselves and for their future and for each generation beautiful yeah it's just going on and on this can you tell people the locations one more time if they're coming through where can they find a cacouli cafe oh you can come off the cocahalla connectors west bank bc and we have one in merit bc and we have what in camloops british columbia And then we also have one downtown, well, not downtown Colonna, but at the college in Colonna.

So, yeah. I'm going to be honest. You'll probably be seeing an application from us in the coming year. My community, Chihuahawatha First Nation, we'd like to see one in Hope. We're doing a feasibility study right now with some of our land. I've put it on the radar that I'm very interested in having a Kikouli Cafe for the Fraser Valley because we don't have anywhere to get banic right now easily. Right. And I think that that's such a shame when you think of all the First Nation communities, all the people who want to be a part of reconciliation, where are we sending them? We don't have opportunities for them to try our cuisine, learn about the culture. I think what you're doing is so important because it connects people to this idea. It allows them just a sliver of understanding of what our communities are about and our culture. And I think we're so lucky that you've invested years and years of years of energy, time, cleaning.

when nobody else is around, unacknowledged moments, a lot of sacrifices to make sure the staff is taking care of. I think all of that deserves so much credit. I'm so grateful that I was able to sit down with you today and we were able to talk about the incredible work you've done that Elijah is now doing and the example you're setting for so many entrepreneurs. Thank you. Hook's Jam. Thank you. I can't wait to come to Hope. I love hope. Brilliant. Awesome. Wow. Thank you so much. I'm really honored that you had me here today. And, you know, I don't know a lot of these things unless someone asked me and I start talking about them. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't really say too much. Right. Well, it's such a pleasure to get your insights on things because I think that's, you have so much knowledge, so many times where things were tough, but you found a way through. And I think that when we're able to learn about that, that gives people the tool so they maybe don't have to make the same mistakes.

So thank you so much, Sharon. Thank you, Erin. Thanks.