Spence Neighborhood Association is a non-profit organization working towards growing and strengthening the Spence neighborhood. To do this, they employ a number of different programs aimed at helping the community, such as their holistic housing program, their environment and open spaces program, their youth employment opportunities, and much more. Their work has helped revitalize the Spence neighborhood, and it has grown into a safer and better community.
In this interview, we sit down with Leslie Kwok, the Youth Hub Coordinator at Spence Neighborhood Association. We talk about SNA and their Youth employment programs, First Jobs 4 Youth and the Youth Crew program., as well as discussing SNA’s relationship with LITE and how we’ve supported them.
To learn more about Spence Neighborhood Association, visit their website: https://spenceneighbourhood.org/
Full transcript of our conversation with Leslie Kwok is below.
Leslie: Hi, I’m Leslie. I am the youth employment hub coordinator and interim youth crew coordinator with the Spence Neighborhood Association.
LITE: And can you tell us what spence neighborhood association is?
Leslie: Spence neighborhood association is a nonprofit with volunteers, board of directors and staff all working together to make the Spence community a better place to live, to work, to volunteer, and to just be a good neighbor.
LITE: How so? What are some of your programs?
Leslie: Spence Neighborhood Association has youth programs over at the Magnus Eliason Recreation Center. So we have the WE 24 program, which helps youth with meals and showers and a safe place to sleep. And then we have youth sports programming over there as well. We have evening youth programming for the youth, they go on outings, they have special events, special guests come in. And as always, meals are being distributed as well for all these youth. And over there, We also have Building Belonging Children’s Program, which is for youth ages six to 12. During the summer, and after school during the school year, they come, they get a meal, and they do arts and crafts and field trips.
So that’s that building alone, we have several buildings. At our head office, we have the environment and open spaces program, which looks after all of our green space in the Spence neighborhood. And at the moment, we have a brand new greenhouse. And in conjunction with them, we are working on a salsa project. That’s why you see all these bottles here, or to make a salad dressing for sale, a small social enterprise that we’ve been working on for awhile. Over there, we also have our housing department, Holistic Housing, which helps homeless people, adults and youth as well. And what else is run from there? Oh, rental safety, and environment and open spaces. I believe I said that already. So that’s another department where there’s a lot going on over there. And then we have a sports program at the U of W rec center, rec Plex center. We also run a sports program out of there.
And then what we have over here is strictly youth employment programs. We run two youth employment programs here, the First Jobs 4 Youth program, which is a structured summer, fall, spring, program, where the goal is to get them jobs with the City of Winnipeg as recreation technicians, or other job entry placements for them. Now over the years, we’ve had over 50 of our youth hired on with the City of Winnipeg, and hopefully, they stay there as long as they want to and have great careers with the city. And then there’s our Youth Crew program. So our Youth Crew program is for ages 12 to 29. So these youth do catering, cooking, baking and getting the food on time to their clients, yard care work and newspaper deliveries. So that’s our primary focus. We have clients from all over the city who order food from us and repeat clients as well. Spence neighborhood association is our largest client who hires us for board meetings and other community events and committee meetings as well. So that’s very exciting. We offer training to all of our youth participants, particularly in workplace safety and health and rights of young workers, the most important part, so that they can go on to be successful in any employment field that they want to go into.
LITE: This might be a digression, but do you mind telling us how you got involved with SNA?
Leslie: I was a student at Red River College taking Community Development/Community Economic Development, and placement came up with the Spence neighborhood association working in the skills Bank, which is an adult employment program, and that was way back 15 years ago. So, through college, I got a placement with Spence, I started helping out with the skills bank, started trying to connect adults with employment. And before my placement was up, I was offered a job at the skills bank when I was finished with school, so when I finished college, I came to work with Spence when the first jobs 4 youth program coordinator position came up. I was asked if I would like that position, I interviewed for it, and I jumped on it because that was always my goal, to work with youth, and help them get a good foundation for their employment success.
LITE: Are there any difficulties running these youth employment programs that come up? Any specific challenges or difficulties that get in the way?
Leslie: I would say no. I would say that our youth are focused when they come to work, they are well trained, they receive all the training they need to be successful, and they are respectful. I honestly can’t say we have any problems. Every once in a blue moon, you have a blip, where there’s a situation, it’s resolved as quickly as possible, and then we move on. Our policies were written by youth, for youth. So if any dispute does happen, which is extremely rare, we refer to the policy. And we take a look at that and read it through and then everyone remembers, “oh, yes, I forgot about that, let’s follow the policy”. So with SNA’s mandate with, SNA’s vision, and protocols put into place, we follow those, we follow our own policies that were developed by youth, and honestly, I can’t say there’s really any challenges. I love all of it. Perhaps the hardest part for me, which is quite common, I imagine, is the funding, just getting more and more money coming so that we can hire more and more youth and offer them more and more opportunities to make money. So challenges with my youth? No.
LITE: Is there a moment that sticks out to you as an exemplary event that sort of explains why you’re here?
Leslie: There are several moments. I wish we had a bell, I could ring. Because when a youth comes into me and says “I got a job somewhere”, whether it’s with the City of Winnipeg, or anywhere else, where they went out there, got themselves an interview, got themselves hired, and comes in and tells me, that’s bell ringing time. You know, that’s the highLITE of why we do this. Aaron is the first jobs 4 youth coordinator who runs that program, and we both agree, that’s why we do it. So we can hear from them “I got myself a job all by myself”. And we might have helped them along the way with resumes or references or mock interview practice or whatever. But they got up and got it themselves. And that is the highLITE that we look forward to. That is our measurement of success.
LITE: Do you mind talking about how LITE has supported Spence Neighborhood association?
Leslie: LITE has been with me since the beginning in 2008. They were funding fall work experience placement. So you have to understand that in 2008, we did not really have a youth crew program. Okay, we had the first jobs 4 youth program primarily. So LITE was able to support us with funding to pay for placements for those first jobs 4 youth after they graduated in the summer. That’s when we kick them out of the nest and they go work someplace else, like the University of Winnipeg, or subway or McDonald’s or wherever they want to work, we hook up the connection, and then we pay them to work there for a certain amount of time. So that’s LITE’s support at that time. And then after a few years, they said to me, “you know, yeah, we’re kind of wanting to make a change in some direction”. So I said, Okay, I understand. I’ve got this new program. And at the time, it was called odd jobs for youth, which is a really odd name. So anyways, I’m like I have this new program, we have zero money. It’s basically taking our younger youth and helping them develop the skills so that their next step can be the first jobs 4 youth program. So they start here and then work their way up until the other program. And LITE said, “sounds awesome, we’re going to help you with that”. So LITE started giving us some support on a yearly basis after applying through the grants to help pay these youth to come in and work different jobs and build their skills and make some pocket money and then help them on their road to success. And LITE’s been with me ever since. I’ve always said they’re the light of my life. At times when funding has been lean, LITE has always been there, hiring us to help at the LITE pancake breakfast, hiring us to cater for LITE pancake breakfast, or to cater with their board meetings or making soups or making cookies for their hampers, or coming up with some sort of product. They’ve given us product assistance as well. They’ve just always been there. Throughout my 15 years with the Spence neighborhood association LITE has been by my side as a supportive funder, listening to our program participants’ needs and helping me meet those needs. Those needs are skills development, hands-on work experience, building our youth’s confidence, and helping them to build a strong foundation of tools that they need to be employable, and confident. So, a long history was LITE. And I don’t know what I would do if LITE were to tell me “Look, Leslie, we’ve been supporting you for so many years, do you want to back out?” I’d be like “no, never.” I’m too spoiled. I’m too used to LITE being by my side. So that would be devastating. So no, I need LITE in my life. And that’s the gist of it. Without LITE, forget it. I would not feel as good as I do. You know, you can’t describe the feeling you have, the good feeling that an organization who works so hard to raise money for employment programs is by your side, helping you. Like, I can’t explain the comfort and the love I feel from having that. It’s hard to put into words.
LITE: Just sort of wrap up, is there anything you want to promote? Like any upcoming events or anything you would like to share?
Leslie: Let’s see, well, Youth Crew Catering is available to do lunches and dinners during the week. So if you do have a small community event or meeting coming up, consider hiring youth crew. You can give us a shout at 204-801-6740, and arrange your catering order with us. We do Vegan, Vegetarian, gluten-free, paleo diets, keto diet, any kind of diet you have, we can do it. And we specialize in special items for folks. So give us a shout if you’re looking for some catering.
LITE: And if people want to learn more about Spence neighborhood association and youth group, where would they go?
Leslie: They can go to our website at www.spenceneighbourhood.org. You can check us out there.