Sherman Center Venture Co-op: Sari Finn
Sari Finn is a fifth-year industrial engineering student. She created JoyVine, which is a community-centric search engine that serves to provide young adults with a fulfilling, faith-based community. The platform serves to connect individuals to Christian communities based on their geographical area, providing a space for them to cultivate their relationship with God in a like-minded community that champions them on their faith journey in their young-adult years.
What was your motivation for creating JoyVine?
The motivation behind it is I’m a Christian and I am also really big on destigmatizing stigmas that aren’t actually true. So there’s this stigma from those within the Christian community or outside the Christian community where you can’t have fun while also honoring the values of your faith. So, the motivation is to create spaces for young adult Christians starting off in the Boston, Massachusetts area, but my hope Is that we can spread to different bigger cities, can find spaces where they’re able to have fun, meet new friends, grow community and such, while also still keeping God and Christ at the center, So basically, having fun without compromising your morals.
How has the Sherman Center impacted you?
The Sherm has impacted me greatly because taking a leap of faith to work on one of my own passions reminded me that if I don’t bet on myself first, nobody else will. And it’s helped me professionally because it’s shown me how intricate and how important having systems within a business or any sort of entity is. And also just the support of Theo Johnson, the director of the Sherman Center. Even though he’s not an entrepreneur himself, he is a leader and he understands the mind of a leader. And so having that support and just learning from him has been an invaluable experience. The last thing I will say is, since 2015, I told myself working in corporate was not my thing; I would do it for a couple of years until I build up my own businesses that can sustain themselves. But once I hit that mark where I can leave, I’m out of there. I’ve gotten a taste of that (as a Venture Co-op). This is my third co-op. And, instead of just going to a corporate office job, I worked on my venture full-time funded through the Sherman Center. It is an opportunity of a lifetime to begin working on a passion that will be a very successful and impactful enterprise in the future. It already is so far because we’ve impacted just one soul, and that’s what matters to me: people getting to know the true meaning of having the joy of the Lord and finding that in community.
What is your hope for the future of JoyVine?
I want JoyVlne to end up being a physical building, a community-based place that is within a neighborhood or within a city where people who are attached to the JoyVlne brand—or people who aren’t—can come in and find a community hub…whether you want to just come in to do your work or whether you want to host one of your Bible studies or your women’s groups, or maybe you need to record a podcost and you want to rent out the entire space for the day. Whatever that case may be, I want to create that third-party space that is also inviting and welcomes the presence of God and the Holy Spirit. And then also for people who aren’t connected to JoyVlne, this is an opportunity for them to maybe experience God in a way that they haven’t before.
Source: The Sherman Gazette