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Chances are you don’t fold cardigans at the Gap or waitress at the corner café because it’s the job of your dreams.

You may do it to finance your escalating tuition fees and because the flexible hours work with your active schedule.

You may simply do it to keep busy over the summer in your hometown which may or may not have become a lot more dull since you left.

Or, like many, you do it because your efforts at getting that dream career have yet to materialize into an actual job.

In May 2008, then-fashion management student Sarah Catalfo found a job at the Roots flagship store on Bloor Street in Toronto after completing her first year at George Brown College. She enjoyed that the job was close to home and didn’t take time away from her academics and her internship with fashion designer Rosemari Umetsu.

Not long after she started working at Roots, the topic of Sarah’s passion in life began to come out in conversations with her coworkers: she is the designer of dress line Maybe that she launched at the age of 17, and has ever since been expanding.

As a budding fashion entrepreneur, Sarah soon realized she was working at the ideal Roots location. “Because it was the flagship store, there were a lot of fashion industry events going on there,” she says.

One event was a fashion show fundraiser in Yorkville planned for June 2009. It was at that point Sarah realized the possibility for exposure she could gain from what had started as a part-time job to pay the rent.

“Seeing as I was already going to be volunteering at the event, I thought I might get the opportunity to present something of my own.”

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