Door of Hope food bank welcomes new staff members

Jul 19, 2018 | 7:06 PM

It’s been a time of transition for Meadow Lake’s Door of Hope food bank and soup kitchen, and two new staff members who started this week are already keeping busy.

Will Main was hired as executive director and Natanis Davidsen is the food bank manager. Both are long-time residents of the community, and started their new roles on Monday, July 16.

Main’s predecessor was Unita Esau, who retired last month. He said he’s been enjoying the first few days in the new position, and it’s been an eventful week of introductions and interactions for him and Davidsen, who took over from Derek Loseth. Main said he felt a calling to do the work.

“It was exciting for me because I’m a First Nations person,” he said. “Most of our clientele are First Nations, and I thought ‘Wow, what an opportunity to serve our people, and the whole community.’ It’s important for me to sit down and hear the stories of the people that we serve. We learn so much from them every single day.” 

Main and Davidsen have been getting acquainted with fellow staff, and working with board members and volunteers to be trained on their new jobs. Each said they have some hopes for the organization. In the short term, they both want to become skilled at providing those in need with food, clothes and other supports. In the long term, Main said he would like help patrons succeed in their lives and keep moving forward.

“We’d like to see all our clientele become volunteers in some capacity,” Main said. “Just so they can start the move up. We want to empower and equip them so they can take that experience and keep moving forward. I also want anyone who comes into the Door to feel welcome and loved, and if they don’t, come see me. I know how intimidating it can be to walk into a service organization.”  

Davidsen said she didn’t know she could love a job this much so quickly, and 40 hampers have been stuffed and delivered already in her first few days. She has been identifying the needs of the food bank, both in human resources and food supplies.

“We need volunteers, for sure,” Davidsen said. “Right now, we’re low on canned meat, we’re low on canned tomato products, we could use canned fruit and vegetable for sure, those are what we’re lacking right now.”

Bill Sclater, chairman of Meadow Lake Outreach Ministries, said he and the other board members were sad to see previous staff members leave. However, the cooks, along with a number of volunteers kept things running during the month-long staffing shift.

“It’s been an amazing experience,” Sclater said. “Now we’ve got two people that will bring a lot of hope and value to the organization.”

 

kathy.gallant@jpbg.ca

On Twitter @ReporterKath