Lathered

WORKLIFE | GRANTED Cleaning up STORY BY STACIE GAETZ | PHOTO BY KRISTY REIMER

Longtime Airdrie residents Meghan Peters and Kristin Verbeek recently received a $10,000 grant from the BMO Celebrating Women Grant Program.

The two founded Lathered Cleaning Company Inc., an Airdrie-based residential and commercial business that services the Airdrie and Calgary areas.

In eight years of operations, the company has expanded to include franchises in St. Albert, Okotoks, High River, Chestermere, Cochrane, Olds and Red Deer to service a large part of Alberta.

“We are dedicated to giving people their time back by offering a reliable and affordable service,” says Peters, adding that they employ about 27 staff.

“We use only all-natural products and pride ourselves on treating our staff and clients with integrity and going above and beyond in all that we do.”

Verbeek says neither business partner had any experience in the cleaning industry when they started out so they began at square one and designed the business based on how they would like to be treated.

GREAT GRANT

More than 1,000 business owners across Canada applied for the BMO Celebrating Women Grant Program to receive one of 10 $10,000 grants to celebrate their innovation and resilience with their business in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“2020 has been a year of unique challenges. Through it all you have shown your community that women are resilient and innovative,” says Erminia Johannson, group head of North America personnel and business banking with BMO Financial Group, in a video addressing the winners.

“This grant will help our company to grow, and to give our franchise owners more tools to realize their greatness,” says Verbeek.

Peters agrees saying, “The money will be used towards weekend workshops to further leadership and business skills with our franchise owners. These women have every ounce of potential needed to succeed beyond their dreams and we are so excited to be able to help them reach it.”

LATHERED ESSENTIALS

In March 2020, as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lathered Cleaning closed its doors for nine weeks to help flatten the curve. During this pivotal time, Peters and Verbeek joined forces with Lisa Hamilton and Jennifer Cote to found Lathered Essentials. This enterprise has allowed the company to help satisfy the high demand for hand sanitizer and to retail the natural cleaning products their customers have appreciated for years. “During the pandemic, we expanded Lathered into our own natural cleaning line,” says Verbeek. “We decided we had been using our products in our clients’ homes for so long that it was finally time to share them with the world.” Lathered Essentials currently has four products including hand sanitizer, all-purpose cleaning spray, laundry strips and toilet bowl cleaner. “From day one, Kristin and I set out to find products we loved that weren’t chock-full of chemi-

Meghan Peters and Kristin Verbeek cals,” says Verbeek. “We wanted something safe that our staff could use all day long without any damage to our bodies. We also knew that the people and families we were helping deserved to feel safe to use their home after we left.”

She adds they quickly learned that many products had labels with the words ‘environmental’ and ‘natural’ on them but did include harmful chemicals.

The duo set out on a mission to create natural cleaners that work with high-quality, clean ingredients which are both powerful and versatile.

“After years of using and tweaking these formulas into something we can’t live without, we felt that we should share them,” says Verbeek. life