Bloomfield resident works hard to live her dreams

This is where the Sari-Sari Store comes in. It was Ms Lubigan’s partner, Kent Clements, who urged her to follow her dream of opening the store, because there wasn’t any place in West Prince that sold the things typically found in Filipino stores, and there’s not always enough time to drive down to Summerside or Charlottetown.

“We’re craving our Filipino food, but it’s not easy because the fish plant workers are working too late,” she said. “So he said why don’t you have a store here?”

Initially, there was a little confusion about what kind of store she had. In Tagalog, the word sari-sari means “variety”, while in India, a sari is the principal outer garment worn by many women throughout the country.

“For the Canadians, they thought I was selling secondhand clothes,” she said. “The Filipino community, they were really happy that first year, because after work, they can just stop by here and get something so they can cook whatever they want.”

The store is also a little different from sari-sari stores in the Philippines. Ms Lubigan’s store has refrigerated storage areas for things like cold drinks, water, and perishable goods, along with freezers for frozen goods. Also unlike sari-sari stores in the Philippines, she can’t sell beer or cigarettes because doing so requires a special license.

Along with Filipino food, she also sells a few things from Thailand, Japan, and China as well.

Originally, the store was set up in the family room of her home in Bloomfield. It became so popular she had a small building created next to her home, and has since expanded again, turning the home’s garage into a larger store.

Ms Lubigan runs the operation almost entirely on her own, doing everything from paperwork, to taxes, ordering and more.

“The inventory is hard for me because sometimes you want to get something through one supplier, and they don’t have it,” she said. “Before COVID, I could order whatever I want for quantity, and now, because they have a shorter supply, they need to put a limit on orders.”

And now the store also has a kitchen, where Ms Lubigan makes things like spring rolls, pancit (fried noodles), and more. Except for meat, most of the ingredients used come right from the shelves of her store, so not only do people in the region have the chance to eat Filipino recipes, they’re eating food grown in the Philippines.

Besides the Sari-Sari store, she works permanent part time at the Scotiabank in O’Leary and employs someone to work at the store when she’s not there. In the mornings, she’s usually up between 5:30 and 6, and will start cooking at the store before heading to the bank. When she gets home she’ll do her prep for the next day, and watch the store herself from 5 pm to 8 pm. Saturdays are her day off, and she operates the store on Sundays so her employee can have her day off.

Her hard work is paying off. Last year she received the Emerging Business Growth Award from the West Prince Chamber of Commerce at the 2022 Business Excellence in Best Practices Awards Gala.

“I didn’t know what I was going to say,” she said. “I was really surprised when they said I had won the award, I never thought that someone would nominate my business. I just focus on my business, and my work, and my family. It was kind of overwhelming.”

Things are going great now, but Ms Lubigan said it wasn’t always like that.

“When you run your business, you need to sacrifice, and I did sacrifice everything,” she said. “The things that needed to be done, going out with friends, I needed to give up everything like that because I needed to be in my store.”

Ms Lubigan had to make sacrifices in her personal life too. Prior to coming to Canada, she worked in Taiwan for four years and had to leave her daughter Elijah, who was two years old when she left, in the care of family. In 2014, when Ms Lubigan became a Canadian citizen, she was able to bring Elijah to Canada.

It was the first time in seven years they’d seen each other in person.

“It was hard, but in the Philippines, it’s normal for us to go abroad and work to give them a better future,” she said. “Because she was really young, I never got to experience being a toddler mother, and that’s the thing I regretted, but I don’t regret it now because I know for sure she has a good future here in Canada.”