CORNWALL, Ontario – A partnership between Glengarry Inter-Agency Group (GIAG) Employment Services and Beyond 21 has been a treat for both organizations.
GIAG’s Youth Job Connect (YJC) program is designed to help teach its clients life skills such as cooking, baking, and general job readiness. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the delivery of the program has had to change.
An opportunity was found in a partnership with Beyond 21.
Beyond 21 is a non-profit program that supports adults with developmental disabilities by offering them opportunities to develop and grow outside the home.
Every year, Beyond 21 raises funds by selling tourtières, butter tarts, and other holiday treats. GIAG and Beyond 21 partnered together to give GIAG’s YJC clients placement training by having them help out with Beyond 21’s baking fundraiser, and Beyond 21 was able to produce more treats to sell.
“Under the guidance of Beyond 21’s Life Skills Facilitator and Chef, Margaret McCormick, and in exchange for extra hands on the production line from the YJC trainees, a partnership between these two non-profit agencies was born. More hands, more butter tarts,” reads a statement from GIAG. “The partnership resulted in 200 tourtières, thousands of cookies, and YJC trainees whose confidence grew as evidence of their skills piled up on the counters. The campaign was a huge success which raised over $9,000 for Beyond 21 in less than two weeks.”
“It has been a wonderful experience partnering with GIAG for our cookie & meat pie campaign to support our Capital campaign. It is a win, win situation for all involved. We had hard working students who got to experience working with our experienced Chef Margaret, volunteers helped out and the community response to our campaign was outstanding. It’s a Christmas Story and Beyond 21 has had the sweet aroma of fresh baked cookies and pies for the last few weeks, a great initiation to our new teaching kitchen. Thank you to everyone and Merry Christmas,” said Tish Humphries, President of Beyond 21.
