Thursday, March 8th is International Women’s Day and a local business owner says it is a great time to shine a light on all the hard work women do.

Verna Martens owns Supersplash in Steinbach along with her sister. She explains what International Women’s Day means to her.

"It is great to be valued in this town and women are hard workers. Being a mom is hard work and being a business owner is hard work. Women work just as hard as men and they do a great job. I have a lot of moms that work for us so I know how they feel as well having kids at home and they either have their kids in daycare or their kids are in school already and they are trying to work around schedules and it is hard to balance home and life business stuff."

Martens says she was born in Paraguay and moved to Canada at age 5. She notes her story of independence started early on when her parents decided to move back to South America.

"I went back with my parents for about six weeks while they moved out there but my sister ended up staying here. I was only 17 but my parents let me come back here at 17 and live with my sister and go to school and work and we stayed here all alone."

Martens notes it turned out very well and she now has a great job with amazing staff.