by Andrea Benotas
It's just before 11am on a deceptively sunny February morning as I wind my way down University Avenue. I have an appointment with my latest profile interviewee and owner of "The Roving Chef" catering company, Tanis Hargrave. Slightly unfamiliar with the area, I'm relieved when I walk into the entrance of the Toronto General Hospital and spot the agreed-upon Tim Horton's Ms. Hargrave and I are using as our meeting place.
The hospital: A rather unusual spot to conduct a magazine interview about entrepreneurship, one might think. For most people, undoubtedly so. For Ms. Hargarave, not in the slightest. It's because of her son Dan that we have agreed to meet here today, and as I later find out, he's been an influencing factor in her life in more ways than one.
Before Tanis started The Roving Chef catering company in 2003, she successfully dabbled in a variety of ventures, including running a national event marketing company, owning a graphic advertising company, and owning a national food-sampling company called <i>Sample-it.</i> She found herself constantly busy, on the go, and jet-setting around the country.
But in 2002 everything changed. Her son Dan's health took a turn for the worse. The cystic fibrosis he had been battling for years was getting the best of him and he was put on the transplant list for a double-lung transplant to save his life. Tanis, meanwhile, was left reconsidering and re-evaluating her own priorities. "Whatever I do, I do 100%," explains Tanis. "I remember there was a picture taken of myself and Dan. I'm sitting at my computer totally consumed with my work, and Dan's head is lying on my lap, and I thought 'Wow, what's more important to me?'"
Dan had his life-saving lung transplant in March of 2002, and at the same time, Ms. Hargrave took a sabbatical to care for him and to plan her next move. "I thought to myself, 'What have I always enjoyed doing?'" Cooking came as a natural answer.
And so, the Roving Chef was born, with the idea of helping out professional women who didn't have time to cook for themselves. As her logo - a big red truck with produce flying in its wake - aptly suggests, Ms. Hargrave started preparing food according to individual client preference and driving from house to house delivering healthy, delicious meals to busy families on a weekly basis. At the time of its inception there was nothing quite like her service around. Before long she had a lengthy list of clients who happily accepted any meal she cooked up for them. Then, five months into her meal delivery service, someone asked her if she provided catering, and before she knew it, Ms. Hargrave was hired for her first catering job serving 350 people. Oddly enough, the job went off without a hitch.
Presently, Ms. Hargrave has four chefs working for her, a full line of serving staff, and although she's still occasionally on the move in her big red truck, she's recently settled into a new home - The Tuscany Event Centre in Aurora. She acquired the Tuscany Event Centre in September of 2009, a beautiful facility out of which her company hosts and caters weddings, family celebrations, corporate meetings, and events. Along with on-site catering, the Roving Chef also accommodates off-site catering requests, and not just in Aurora, but Toronto, Pickering, and beyond.
Although running her own catering company has been challenging at times, Ms. Hargrave loves her job and it has proven an appropriate career shift to what motivated her to make the change in the first place - namely, her son Dan. Indeed, on the eve of a major catering job for the Pickering Mayors Gala for which she bested 14 other caterers vying for the job and was responsible for serving an eight-course meal to 350 people, Dan had a serious respiratory attack and needed to be rushed to the hospital. Needless to say, even without their leader, Ms. Hargrave's catering team rose to the occasion and didn't fall apart, perfectly executing their job and even earning themselves much praise from the mayor of Pickering himself - an impressive feat, that most would agree is reflective of Ms. Hargrave's dedication and discipline as a leader. Most importantly, she was able to stay true to her commitment to Dan and see him through his hospitalization.
And while things worked out for Dan then, he's had some complications since his first transplant and is currently at the top of the waiting list for yet another double-lung transplant. In the meantime, Tanis remains a vocal advocate against the less-than-perfect organ donation system in our country. In fact, Canada has one of the lowest organ donation percentages in the world, and this has a lot to do with the way organ donation is registered in this country. "It used to be that you register for organ donation through your license, but now this has changed and become private, and so all those people who have organ donor cards don't realize they are now essentially useless," Ms. Hargrave tells me. "Now to register organs for donation you have to go to the Trillium Gift of Life Network website, click on registry, download a consent form, print it, fill it out, and mail or drop it off at your nearest OHIP centre. And I think to myself, 'How many people are going to do that?'" So she's taken the initiative into her own hands by going to council and presenting a proposal that seeks to allow organ donor pamphlets and registration forms to be available at all government-run buildings, and has been in talks with MPP Frank Klees about reopening the bill for easier and more convenient organ donation registration. "There are many people like Dan who live moment to moment and don't know if they will see tomorrow, and a lot of them don't. The more people we make aware, the better."
Our meeting wraps up just as Dan emerges from his routine exercise session at the hospital. Tanis tells me that as a candidate on the donor list, Dan must follow a strict regimen to make sure his body is ready to receive his new lungs. I shake hands with Dan who's been through so much, thank Tanis, and bid them both goodbye. A line she mentioned earlier jumps out at me: "I believe whatever you put out, it comes back to you."
With Dan's resilient spirit and Tanis' selfless dedication and devotion, I know there's greatness in the cards for these two extraordinary people.
NOTE: Weeks after I met with Tanis to conduct this interview, I found out that Dan finally received his greatly-anticipated and much needed second double-lung transplant. According to family members, he made it through the surgery with flying colors and has been having a rapid and remarkable recovery.
If you would like to register to be an organ donor, please visit the Trillium Gift of Life Network.
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