A local Durham Region business calling on YOUR help.
Hello friends,
Many of you know us as your local place to recover when life gets particularly overwhelming, to recover after injury, or to get away from the stress of work, school or parenting. Some of you may not know us, and some of you may be seeing this after its too late.
When Brent Giroux was 20 years old, he was in a motorcycle accident that left him changed for the rest of his life.
Brent’s 21st birthday after the accident in 1987.
With a brain injury that placed the odds against him, Brent, the owner of The R.E.S.T. Centre in Whitby, says he feels he fell behind his peers for many years. He turned to alternative therapies and floatation tanks in an attempt to regain control over his life. After thousands of floats, he noticed an improvement in his depression, cognitive abilities, pain levels, and sleep quality. Along with the personal benefits, Brent became an expert in techniques not by education, but by trial and error with his own personal experience.
He opened the first floatation centre in Ontario in hopes of sharing the benefits of the therapy with others. He has since moved his centre to Whitby, Ontario - Nestled between the Whitby and Oshawa border. The R.E.S.T. Centre offers many therapies aside from their signature floatation pods, such as:
-PEMF Therapy -Red light therapy
-Infrared sauna -Cold plunge therapy
- and others.
When I first met Brent, I was experiencing postpartum depression and my flotation session was a desperate attempt to bring peace back into my household. I arrived to a very quiet centre. I looked online and really thought this place was closed or a scam. Brent greeted me and swapped my salty boots for some sandals and we got to chatting. I didn’t want to talk, and it was clear that he was a little odd - a title he wears with a badge of honour. He told me his story and I brushed it off, as many of his customers do. He asked me why I was floating and mentioned a story about a previous client who didn’t have a great float. This sly warning had me open up about my previous brain injury. He explained the ongoing impact of TBI’s of any level and was telling me symptoms I’d had for years without me mentioning them to him. He gave me some instructions for preparing my mindset and I had the most amazing float of my life.
I came back to visit Brent a few weeks later to ask him for a favour. I wanted to come off maternity leave with a recent case study for digital marketing support. He stated he was in need - and I started right then and there.
Sometimes being kindhearted and wanting to help people can be one’s biggest Achilles heel. Brent had been victim of a few scams and less than honest work, and the attempted scams were clinging to him like flies. We cleaned a lot of this up together in the first week of working together, but the damage will take months to recover from. As a local business, he is struggling. We continue to pitch campaigns to local nonprofits hoping one will catch on and allow us to profit just a little above margins so that we can put some money into renovating our space. If you follow us online - you’ll see Brent loves to use his imagination with AI and generate his big ideas for The R.E.S.T. Centre there. None of our campaigns have really picked up. We’ve been so happy to fundraise for our friends at these local businesses and nonprofits. We hope to do many more.
We are calling on our community to spread the word, send us suggestions, bring your comments to us, and to come back to see us. Making flotation or PEMF or any one of our services a part of your wellness routine can help reduce stress and inflammation. You have an opportunity to support a local business run by a quirky, well informed, disabled man who is as tall and joyful as the Jolly Green Giant - just not as green.
Please share this post with a friend. Please consider purchasing a gift card using the discount code “k8y” for 20% off and so we know how you found us. You can use this at any time to book services or give it to a friend. We appreciate your support!