Norfolk teacher launches Hampton Roads Greenbook app, website to spotlight Black- and minority-owned businesses
Seko Varner clearly remembers his late father telling him in the 1970s that there were two books that would always keep him safe — the Bible and the “Green Book.”
The son of a minister, Varner said his family often traveled by car during his formative years between New York and areas in the Deep South.
“The Negro Motorist Green Book,” created in the 1930s and renamed the “Travelers’ Green Book” in 1966, served as a vital guide for travelers, highlighting businesses and services that welcomed all patrons across the U.S. and beyond during the era of segregation.
“We prayed before we would take off, and he would take out those two books,” Varner said.
Fast forward 50 years and Varner, a special education teacher at Granby High School in Norfolk by day and owner of entertainment company Positive Vibes by night, has launched his own modern-day version called the Hampton Roads Greenbook, an app and website directory designed to spotlight Black-, minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses throughout the region.
“But we embrace all so that the users of the platform have the highest, most robust experience when they’re making their buying decisions, reading articles and looking for events to attend,” Varner said.
The comprehensive directory is currently filled with about 1,700 listings, including everything from electricians to funeral services and gynecologists to interior designers in South Hampton Roads and on the Peninsula. The platform includes info on professionals and nonprofit organizations.
The app is downloadable for free on both Android and Apple phones. To date, Varner said it’s been downloaded about 700 times, and he stressed that users can leave reviews and feedback.
Basic listings are free, but monthly and yearly fees enable users to upgrade to paid listings to place advertisements and share event information and articles.
Anita Lumpkin, owner of RS Settlement Services in Virginia Beach, said she has garnered business from being on the app. She also uses it to find businesses.
“I wanted to join to not only be part of the movement of providing good service, but also be able to circulate my dollar within the community,” she said.
Linda Maya Goss located the perfect moving company via the Greenbook platform when she moved from Norfolk to Urbanna last year.
“After that experience, I shouted it from the rooftops on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter,” she said.
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She also decided to list her Norfolk-based business, Maya Publications Books by Teachers, on the website.
“There are lots of people of color who have businesses, but they don’t always have the funds to advertise as much as some of the bigger businesses,” Goss said.
Varner said the guide has been a project in the making for over a decade, but when he learned about the circulation challenges that happen in the Black community, he knew he had to bring it to fruition.
“In the Black community, our dollar circulates once. In the Latino community, it circulates six times. In the Asian community, it circulates nine times, and in the predominantly white community, it circulates such an unlimited amount of time it’s hard to track,” he said of a study conducted by the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth.
Varner said he learned that communities with the highest amount of resource circulation had the lowest amount of crime and preventable diseases and the highest amount of academic achievement and economic prosperity.
“This can be one way to address some of the challenges we have in Hampton Roads,” he said.
For more information, visit hrgreenbook.com.
Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-652-5836, [email protected]
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