New program aimed at finding better employment opportunities

By Troy Bannerman - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on April 14, 2023.

Herald photo by Troy Bannerman Interfaith Food Bank is partnering with the LDS Church to host a free employment program.

The Lethbridge Interfaith Food Bank and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are partnering on a program to help community members find better employment.

The free 10-week program will start April 17 and run until the end of June with people coming weekly on Mondays from 10 a.m until noon. Attendees will have to register in advance.

Danielle McIntyre, Executive Director of the Interfaith Food Bank, spoke about the need for this program in an interview recently.

“During COVID, our numbers went way down when the temporary financial supports were available. Now that those have dried up, our food banks across the country are seeing record levels of need. Some food banks are struggling with meeting that need,” said McIntyre.

“We’re in a pretty good position here locally. We have an amazing community that is behind us. But our numbers are much higher than they would traditionally be at this time of year. Which is always scary for us, but something that we were kind of expecting after the pandemic. The pandemic was also a time period when a lot of people have reevaluated. And when they were laid off or lost their jobs, they maybe aren’t returning to the same type of work.”

McIntyre said some have decided perhaps they want something better or different for themselves so it was decided this particular program will be timely.

“It’ll give people the opportunity to be like, ‘yeah, no, I’m actually going to do it. And I’m going to join a bunch of other people that are going to help me stay accountable to myself.’ And set some goals and go out and start post pandemic in a better position then they were pre-pandemic,” said McIntyre.

“I think one of the things that was good was people did sit back, they evaluated what really mattered to them. We slowed down. And just in slowing down, you have the opportunity to decide what’s important. And you made time for the things that did matter”

McIntyre feels work opportunities have changed and the job market is an employee’s market.

“A lot of people do have the ability to pick and choose what they would like to do because of that mass exodus and then the difficulty of bringing people back to work. And so there’s different opportunities out there now than there were before, which again, is another opportunity for us to support families in maybe some of those things that they couldn’t access at the food bank beforehand.”

The food bank, she said, needs partners such as the church, Blackfoot Hub or Lethbridge Family Services to offer their own areas of expertise to clients.

“What we love is that we have the space here, and in an environment that our families are familiar with to come where they feel comfortable. And they can get exposed to some of those other agencies and supports that are out there in the community, which eventually will help them not need to come here at all.

“We are food and facility people. We leverage our facility to offer the families that we’re supporting opportunities to connect with other agencies and local supports, to help them address the underlying issues of why they need the food bank,” said McIntyre.

So the food bank partners with different agencies.

“This particular program that’s coming up is in partnership with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who run several programs similar to this, but they are going to bring this one on-site to the food bank. While the program, materials, and the facilitation is done by church members, there is no religious affiliation or preference applied to the programming whatsoever. They are just going to use their resources to support community members in getting a better job than they have now, are getting ready to have a job that will steer them more towards their career goals, their interests, and aim as high as they as they would like to, instead of just settling for what they can get right now,” said McIntyre.

“Hopefully everyone will walk out of this with a better job than they’ve got right now,” said McIntyre.

“We’re very grateful to the LDS church that they are providing the facilitation, all of the program materials completely free of charge. And they’ve customized it to suit the needs of our client base.

“We have so many different groups that we partner with, and the more common The needs are among our clients, the more likely it is that we can grab a partner and bring something in on site to help people out.”