One morning in January, owners Clara and Danny Vo found their iconic Thomeh Kwik-Way Convenience store with a shattered window. Two people had broken in overnight, damaging the store and stealing goods.
Later that day, the Vos had another surprise—members from the community were fundraising to help the store recover.
“We went from bad luck to good luck very quickly,” said Danny Vo.
A GoFundMe was set up by a regular at the Cornwallis Street store, Maria Brine. The page was shared by neighbouring business Sourwood Cider on Instagram and spread rapidly.
A week later, over $3,000 had been raised through community donations along with messages of support.
“We read over all the names of everyone who’s donated, we’re very grateful,” said Danny.
Although the Vos appreciate the act of kindness, they want to donate half the money raised for them back to the community.
“It’s important for us to be humble,” said Danny, “there are lots of people struggling in the community, homeless people who we want to help.”
They have not picked an organization to donate the money to yet, but say they definitely want it to go towards helping with homelessness.
“We see a lot of people in the neighbourhood who we know need help in different ways, people who come into the store. Even the people who broke into the store.”
The Vos taped a note on their storefront thanking the community, the note begins: “From our hearts, we, Danny and Clara Vo, would love to say thank you to neighbours, friends, customers…Your kindness has melted our hearts these days, we appreciate very very much your loving support.”
The note even goes on to forgive the people who had damaged the store “we would love to say we forgive the two persons who damaged the glass window and took our supplies…please please don’t do this again, it’s hurting our community.”
The store window has been repaired using emergency funds.
The Thomeh Kwik-Way, also called Joe's Convenience, has been a staple of North End Halifax for decades. The store was started in 1976 by Joe Thomeh, an immigrant from Lebanon, and run by him and his family for 46 years.
In May of 2022, Thomeh retired, but it was important to him that another passionate immigrant family take over. He entrusted the store's legacy to the Vos, who are from Vietnam.
Since then, the Vos have added house-made Vietnamese cuisine to the store's repertoire. With their kindness, and their fresh food, they’ve been able to sustain that neighbourhood's love for Thomeh Kwik-Way.
