My name is Burny Unger and my husband, Ryan, and I own a construction company in Niagara Falls, ON. While I also work part-time as a church secretary, run two other small businesses, and have three sons, Glen, Mark, & Paul, the last thing I was looking for was another business opportunity. Approximately 4 weeks ago, some wonderful friends of ours, John & Lise, introduced us to this amazing opportunity and these incredible smelling candles. I have always been a candle lover, but about a year ago, Mark, who is very health conscious, told me that the scented candles I was burning were highly toxic! I had absolutely no idea! With Mia Bella candles being made of soy, vegetable and beeswax, they are virtually soot free and the most amazing smelling candles we have ever had. I now have Mark's approval to burn candles again! He just loves them, as does the rest of our family. We don't even have to have the candle lit for our home to smell wonderful. The votes are in...Mia Bella candles are the favorites of our family and friends!

What started out to be me just wanting to be a "Candle of the Month" member, turned into a team of 10 of us within 2 short weeks! How incredible is that? We are so excited about this opportunity and absolutely thrilled about how it is changing the lives and direction of family and friends.

-Burny Unger, ON

We were making a FedEx delivery at Lise & John's house when John asked us to smell one of his Mia Bella candles. He explained all about the candles and other products. They really were the best scented candle we had ever smelled. At this point we were sold and wanted to become distributors. Bob has been driving the road for years and has wanted to come off for quite some time, so we joined the Candle of the Month Program and started our own candle business. We've always wanted to have a store of our own and this month on Dec 4, 2004, we had our grand opening of Vera's Candles & Crafts. We feature crafts from local artists and we also sell our Mia Bella candles.

-Vera & Bob Eastwood, ON

I spent many years in a conventional job as a Quality Control manager for a large corporation. When I was offered “early retirement”, I jumped at the chance. I looked at several different business ideas and started my own successful landscaping company. While I enjoyed the work, I found it to be labor intensive and I was virtually had to baby sit my employees.

I began to look at other home based opportunities and a found a Network Marketing company that I believed to be perfect and my wife Sandy and I built a successful business with it. I loved the industry and the people and the people we met. Unfortunately, the company went out of business and we started to look for a new venture.

Early in November of this year, a good friend, John MacFadden, called and told us that he and his wife Lise had discovered and joined a “little candle company” called Scent-Sations. We were hesitant at first; my wife is very particular about the candles she burns. She had done some research on paraffin and learned how toxic a substance it is, so of course when John said candles, we assumed they were made of paraffin. John suggested that we look at his website and when we discovered that the Mia Bella candle was made of natural products and were of the highest quality, we were very interested in learning more. John offered to take us to the company and see for ourselves how the product is made, so we took a little road trip to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to meet the owners.

We were greeted with such warmth and enthusiasm by everyone, from the owners and partners, the office personnel and everyone else involved with the company. We were so impressed by the “little candle company” that I signed up as a distributor right in the Scent-Sations office.

I truly believe that I have finally found the perfect business. People love candles and everyone I show them to are just as enthusiastic about Mia Bella as I am. The compensation plan is the best I have ever seen and the Scent-Sations team is the greatest.

I am so excited to be among the first distributors in Canada and I know that with the team I have working with me, we can all build an incredible business together.

-Joseph Duhaime, ON

In the spirit of giving that permeates the company, Mia Bella Scocozzo recently volunteered and donated some of her beautiful long hair to the "Locks of Love" Program. This program is a non-profit organization that donates hair replacement to disadvantaged children under 18 who have illness that create hair loss challenges. You can read all about this wonderful organization by clicking on the following website: http://www.locksoflove.org

By Bonnie Adams
badams@timesleader.net

Local soldier's families will light pine-scented candles on Christmas Eve at the exact moment their loved ones are lighting similar candles in Iraq and elsewhere.

A local candle manufacturer is shipping 12,000 votive candles to local National Guardsmen, Marine Reservists and numerous other troops serving overseas.

Families of 109th Field Artillery soldiers will light the candles at 11PM on Christmas Eve - 7AM Christmas morning in the Middle East.

"Everybody will be sharing a common flame. Even if they can't be together, at least they can feel like they're together," said Tavelynn Karpovich, president of the 109th's Headquarters Battery family support group.

Karpovich said the candle company, Scent-Sations, Inc. of Wilkes-Barre, approached the Headquarters Battery about sending Mia Bella candles to the troops.

Bob Scocozzo and his three business partners wanted to do something to show their support. "it makes us feel good," he said.

His cousin, Debra Baker of Plymouth, lost her husband, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, in an explosion in Baghdad on April 26. Baker, 30, was a member of the 109th's Bravo Battery.

Scocozzo got the idea to send candles to the soldiers while watching news of the war on CNN. "We've got to do something," he said. His partners in the 2-year-old company, Carmen and Lynn Milazzo and Charlie Umphred, agreed.

They debated what scent to send before deciding on a Christmas tree aroma. "They kick when they burn," Scocozzo said of the pine scent.

He attended a Headquarters Battery family support group meeting on Sunday and said he was touched by seeing the many young women with children. "It could be my son serving over there in a few years," Scocozzo said.

Scocozzo, 54, was an Army Reserve medic with the former 300th Field Hospital during the early 1970s while the Vietnam war was still being waged. "I saw a lot of people my age coming back blown apart."

You can download a press release here

About two months ago I contacted the manager of our local humane society to broach the subject of doing a fundraiser for them at one of their annual events with our Mia Bella candles. Her name is Jackie Von Soosten and she was very interested after smelling them and reading over the fundraiser portfolio that I left with her.

We discussed the details for the upcoming event and on that day Bill and I set up and had a very successful day for the Humane Society. No surprise here, we all know the reception our incredible candles get and that day was no exception. We were proud and pleased to present a check to Jackie in support of her organization and she was pleased enough to ask if I could come by and discuss other future events that they had coming up. We were happy to do this being animal lovers ourselves.

We did a couple more events for them and Jackie and I agreed to do an ongoing fundraiser there at the shelter with our candles, and I have to tell you it was very impressive walking into the Animal Shelter and smelling one of our candles burning with amazing coverage rather than the typical smells that often have such negative implications. It just lends a more positive first impression and frame of mind for everyone as they first walk in smelling our homey comforting fragrances rather than the unavoidable usual collage of animal smells.

I have to believe this would also lend some comfort to the animals themselves. This was working out well and Jackie would regularly give me new orders for candles but she is a very very busy lady doing the jobs of 3 people and my calendar is sometimes hectic as well so coordinating our schedules was sometimes difficult.

I broached the subject of her signing up for candle of the month and eliminating me as the middle man and doing it herself. I assured her I would still be available to help out at events when our schedule permitted if she needed us to and would continue to help in any way we could with their fundraising. She also agreed that there would be more profit in it for them if she signed up and took over as the distributor for their fundraiser. They are extremely overcrowded in their current facility and it is very out dated. Their goal is to raise enough money to build a new much larger facility for the animals with an onsite vet clinic, and other amenities that are not currently possible. Jackie believes and I KNOW the candles will in large part help make this dream a reality. Now this is where the story blossoms into one of those inspirational, put a lump in your throat stories that I believe all of us benefit from.

First you have to understand the capacity for compassion and caring, and the indomitable strength of will, determination, and commitment that Jackie and all of her staff have for the shelter and the animals that daily come in and out of there and their lives. They more often than not see the worst case scenarios of our human animal interactions. As Jackie said to us last weekend, you get some of these animals in that are sick or abused and you spend days and weeks healing them, feeding them, and caring for them. You can't help but become involved on a personal and emotional level and when you ultimately are unable to save them because of a lack of available homes you go through a different but profound kind of emotional devastation, sometimes being the last to hold them in your arms as you watch them slip from this life ......because it is necessary..... (I know this feeling personally, having chosen to do this job in my younger years and remembering clearly the nights I went home from work and cried for the lives I couldn't save. This is why this story is so dear to my heart.)

I also very much understand the determination that Jackie and her staff feel as they start the new day, and face the challenges all over again of how many can they save, and fiercely pursuing and intervening when they know of an animal in an abusive situation. Just imagine what these people are going to add to our business with their convictions and determination to succeed, and the belief and passion that they already have in our candles and that grows with every candle that one of them personally takes home or that goes out the door with a new owner and chance for new life.

This is the POWER that I spoke of that all of you at Scent-Sations set into motion when you created this awesome company. The POWER to change lives, and a product to make it happen. And it is real everyone. I am so proud to be in this business and feel a part of my life come full circle. Remembering the helplessness I sometimes felt in my youth at being unable to save more of them, and now to come around again in a different place in my life with another opportunity to make a difference and have a business and product that has the POWER to make that difference, and to be able to pass that POWER on to these very dedicated, noble people and see the difference happen, to see the POWER at work and watch it build and make that difference in so many ways, in so many lives, is a feeling of satisfaction that I can't even begin to explain. I have many other personal passions that are also coming full circle with the power of our success in this business such as special needs children and the example of our special needs daughter Savanah Rose, but that is another story, and another lump in the throat. This one is about Jackie, a new distributor and her staff... the new partnership of them and Mia Bella Candles in making a difference.

-Kellene & Bill VanDorn

When I first discovered Network Marketing I immediately was attracted to the simple concept of helping people to achieve their dreams by sharing products and a business and teaching others to do the same.

What excited me the most was that people from all walks of life, no matter their age, background, education, etc could succeed if they had a dream and belief, combined with commitment and effort of taking consistent action.

After five years with my first Network Marketing company I was introduced to Scent-Sations at a time that I was actively searching for a business with product that was simple and fun, a huge potential for growth and a low start up cost. I never thought I would actually find it!

Excited about the Mia Bella candle being clean burning and from natural ingredients like soy and vegetable wax and about working with a company that had owners with integrity and values that I trusted and the leadership in place I decided to join right away.

When the Mia Bella candles arrived and my home was filled with the fragrance before I even opened the box I couldn't wait to light one. Discovering for myself the scent really does last all the way to the bottom of the jar without that black sooty residue cemented my belief in the products and the enormous potential with Scent-Sations!

With all of the flexible and proven ways we have to make money it's so much fun to work with new distributors that might be unsure of them selves thinking maybe they can't sell. Then once they get their first candles and experience first hand the clean burning fragrance they are motivated to share them with others. Their results of putting cash in their pockets daily and the feedback we get that this truly is the BEST candle out there continues to encourage them to share the business opportunity with others.

It amazes me constantly the transformations I see in the personal growth, confidence and belief level of new distributors as they take steps to build their business!

With the expansion of the company into Canada, new products continually being introduced, the beautiful and very useful marketing and promotional materials available and the expansion in our pay plan we are positioned to really build a solid future that will changes lives and make many, many dreams come true. I just can't say enough about how excited I am for the future ahead!

Each and every month we break all records from the months before and it is so exciting to see all the new Directors right around the corner.

I'm so proud of our company and products, thankful for Carmen, Lynn, Bobby and Charlie for creating this opportunity, appreciative of and honored to work with such an inspiring and dedicated team of individuals. I'm looking forward to many years of sharing Scent-Sations products with others, meeting everyone at the Spring Fling and helping many others to reach their dreams!

-Stephanie Sterling, CA