Rural Black Nova Scotia businesses vending at Halifax airport during African Heritage Month

The Black Business Initiative (BBI) has a busy schedule of events and activities planned in Nova Scotia for African Heritage Month.

The BBI is committed to growing a successful Black business community in Canada, by helping current and aspiring Black entrepreneurs achieve their business goals through a range of programs and services.

Amber Grosse has been with the BBI team for many years. She says the initiative is Pan-Atlantic – operating in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.

"BBI was always there specifically for the African Nova Scotian communities, where the long historical systemic racism with getting loans and things like that from banks, and BBI was able to fill that void and that need, and I think it worked clearly because now we're in Atlantic provinces," said Grosse.

On Monday, the BBI, in partnership with the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary's University's, is holding an event at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport, called the "Dynamic Rural Business Series."

The event celebrates and highlights rural Black business owners across Nova Scotia.

"We'll have entrepreneurs that are in the cooking field, IT, as well as photography, right down to Yarmouth and all the way up to Cape Breton, so it's going to be an awesome event," said Grosse.

Grosse says the airport was chosen due to its interest in the initiative.

"And the other cool thing is for the rest of the month of February, the airport is actually having Black businesses as vendors... every Monday and Friday," she said.

According to Grosse, vendors will be posted from arrivals to the departures area.

She says a list of vendors will be updated on the BBI's social media and website.

Grosse's own event planning business, "Evolving Embers," will also be part of the initiative taking part at the airport.

"I like to consider myself an incubator and community connector. That's one of my personal values," she said. "And any job or occupation that I've done has always kind of aligned with that."

Grosse says she thinks her community plays a big role in her passion towards the cause.

"I'm from the Preston townships, specifically from East Preston, N.S., my dad being the executive director at the Black Cultural Centre... It was instilled in me and the importance of family and the importance of preserving our history, and the importance of, we can be in business for ourselves, out of a necessity and now, folks are seeing, 'OK. Businesses are where to go,'" she said.

"And it's also in light of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter, a lot more folks are looking to buy local, buy Black, especially this month."

More information on the BBI can be found online.