Tola Yoga & Fitness

Angela Girard opened up Tola Yoga & Fitness in 2012 as a place for the Port Coquitlam community to unwind and improve their long-term health in a fun and relaxing environment. She started the studio with the help of her husband after she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Angela sees her illness as the beginning of a realization that led to her reinventing herself and her business: “I had a business before this,” Angela says. “A totally different business – I was running a wedding planning business, and ended up getting sick. I ended up getting breast cancer. I started doing yoga and I realized that the business I was doing was really kind of toxic and stressful,” she recalls. “I started taking yoga and realized that we didn’t really have any quality yoga studios in the area. So we opened one.”