This Week We Feature Young Professional Merander S. Stevens
This week’s young professional has managed to transform what may otherwise have been a simple and unremarkable journey into something of a success story through sheer force of will and determination.
Today, our Young Professional Merander S. Stevens is the proud owner of a budding business, a wife and mother of two young children.
While setting her focus on becoming a successful entrepreneur is something that was perhaps always at the back of Merander’s mind, she may not have known this from an early age.
Her story began, as it continues today, on the beautiful sister island of Virgin Gorda as a gifted young child where she attended the Robinson O’Neal and Bregado Flax schools.
Merander related that even before finishing high school completely, her work life began at the Bitter End Yacht Club. She continued later as a waitress and cashier at the Emporium and also worked at Leverick Bay briefly as a cashier.
Shortly after the birth of her first child, our Young Professional began working at the Little Dix Bay Hotel and Resort around 2005 as a Spa Receptionist in what she described as her dream job.
“I always had this love from when I was a little girl of massaging,” Merander revealed. It was no surprise then that her entry into the spa industry emerged as something of a catalyst in getting her own business off the ground.
Her third year as a Spa Receptionist at Little Dix saw Merander persuading her superiors to allow her to further her studies in the field and despite the challenges she had to overcome at the time, she made the journey overseas for a few months to get her career on track.
Our young professional confessed that it was no easy task leaving her young child to attend the Sterling Health Centre in Dallas, Texas and this has been one of her more difficult life decisions so far. Today, she has no regrets for taking the life changing step that took her along the path that has now made her a fully certified Massage Therapist/Esthetician.
Since her return, Merander has been able to supplement the work she continues to do at Little Dix with the work she does as an entrepreneur for clients staying at various villas across the island.
She first opened ‘A Touch of the Caribbean Day Spa’ in 2012 at Eureka in the Ocean View Complex and has never looked back since. While her business and clientele grew steadily, Merander felt limited by the accommodation that was afforded through the facility and couldn’t offer the full range of services that she needed to at the time.
Seizing on an opportunity to expand, Merander closed her business at that location last October and put all her effort and energy into constructing a new spot from the ground up.
More challenges came but tomorrow, Merander will re-open at a new location in The Valley, Virgin Gorda opposite M&M Bakery which she described as bigger and better. “I pray and I hope that God will give me the guidance and the strength to continue,” she expressed while noting that she may possibly be the only local therapist that currently operates on the island. It is something that serves as an immense source of pride.
Her motivation, she offered, has never been solely about money. “I think massages are about healing and health,” the mother of two said. For her, it is all about knowing that after leaving, her clients have left without the aches and pains and other problems they may have entered with.
Knowing that her clients have left fully satisfied lets Merander know that she has done a good job and makes her feel really good about what she does. “When you walk into my spa you feel comforted and loved,” she explained.
She related that her standards at the spa are of the highest rating and have been transferred from what she has learnt over the years while working at Little Dix.
Clients need not be afraid that the five-star service she provides comes with a hefty price tag though, as Merander revealed her rates are completely affordable and priced with the common person in mind.
Apart from massages, A Touch of the Caribbean Day Spa offers wraps, facials, pedicures, hot stones treatment and will also be offering natural aromatherapy treatment in the near future among other services.
All along, Merander has never given up and said regardless of the challenges she has faced, anything she put her mind to has been achieved with the help of her strong faith and her willpower. She was also keen on expressing sincere gratitude for the support provided by her husband, parents and other close family members and friends who have assisted her in getting this far.
Merander advises young persons with similar ambitions to pray first as without God nothing is impossible. “You put your trust, your faith and your hope in him and you have to pray and you have to be positive,” she advised. It doesn’t hurt to also have a lot of confidence in your ability as well and a good support system in place.
“For women out there”, she added, “the best thing you can ever give yourself is independence.”
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33 Responses to “This Week We Feature Young Professional Merander S. Stevens”
From one entrepreneur to a next
"Gumption"
Also strong, independent and very progressive.
But I must admit, I LOVE those LIPS.
Thanks!
All the best with what God has blessed you with
Please find below my contact imformation. We are also on facebook if you dont have facebook email me and ill be happy to add you to my Email list for promotions and specials.
Merander Stevens
Owner/ Manager
A Touch Of The Caribbean Day Spa
The Valley, Virgin Gorda
British Virgin Islands
atouchofthecaribbean@gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/TouchOfTheCaribbenDaySpa?ref=hl
Cell: 284-544-5913