This is part of a year-long ‘Love for Local’ series called NB365: portraits of New Brunswick entrepreneurs, businesses and organizations. Huddle is a media partner with Love for Local. Today, we hear from Anson and Vanessa Darville of BarterPay New Brunswick in Quispamsis.

WE HAVE BEEN ENTREPRENEURS FOR YEARS. VANESSA HAS HAD HER OTHER BUSINESS SINCE JANUARY 2008, FIRST STARTING IN SAINT JOHN, AS A WAY FOR HER TO BE HOME WITH OUR CHILDREN AS THEY GREW UP. SHE HAS ALSO RESTARTED IN FIVE DIFFERENT CITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRY AS I WAS PROMOTED AND TRANSFERRED FOR WORK. IN 2017 I TOOK THE LEAP AND STARTED MY OWN BUSINESSES AS WELL IN OTTAWA. AFTER 17 YEARS OF HELPING OTHERS BUILD THEIR DREAM, I WANTED TO BUILD SOMETHING THAT WAS MINE.

As members in Ottawa, we understood the value BarterPay had with helping small and medium businesses and when we moved back to Quispamsis in November of 2020 we wanted to keep using and participating with BarterPay.

We realized that there was no presence in the area, and although we could purchase nationally, we wanted to support local in New Brunswick first. So, we started making inquiries and quickly realized the opportunity of launching BarterPay in the region so we could help other small and medium businesses! Our entire business is about supporting local.

It exists ONLY to help local businesses. We have learned from our own experiences that many businesses have time they can’t sell, tables they can’t fill, space they can’t rent and so on but still continue to have the overhead that goes along with all businesses.

Small and medium businesses are what make a community thrive and having witnessed so many businesses suffer over the last 18 months, we know now more than ever that supporting each other is key in coming through this and becoming stronger.