ABRAM-VILLAGE – Sept. 24, 2021 – Despite the pandemic, the Hard Workers Youth Services Co-op recently completed « an excellent year of work » that generated revenues of $2008.10, reports Stéphane Blanchard, youth development officer for RDÉE Prince Edward Island.

During the summer of 2021, the nine worker-members of the co-op, all from the Evangeline region, completed 15 paid work contracts of all types (light construction, painting, cleaning and gardening) for individuals, organizations and businesses, exceeding their objective of 10 contracts. They also built and sold three park benches painted in the colors of the Acadian flag.

After paying their expenses and receiving their salaries, they were left with a small profit of $216.07, which they divided proportionally among themselves in the form of dividends, considering the hours of paid and volunteer work that each of them had given to their co-op. In total, the youth invested 82 hours of volunteer time to manage their social enterprise, discuss their business affairs in sub-committees (finance, marketing and human resources), make decisions during board meetings and promote their services door-to-door.

All of this followed two training sessions on how a co-op works. « Our young workers benefited from learning all kinds of things about customer service, finances, communication, teamwork, etc., not only during the training but also by working together and serving their clientele, » explained Blanchard.

He added that the youth were well supervised and mentored by RDÉE PEI’s youth program coordinators, Stephanie Gallant, Felicity Montgomery and Lindsay Gallant. To equip them for their jobs, they benefited from training on youth service co-ops offered by the Coopérative de développement régional – Acadie, thanks to a partnership developed with the RDÉE a few years ago. They played a key role in recruiting the participants. “We couldn’t be more pleased with the work our coordinators have done this year,” says the youth development officer. “Their performance has been outstanding.”

The 2021 co-op worker-members, who also gave their all, were president Danika Richard, vice-president Jaxon Short, secretary Logan Arsenault, treasurer Mia MacInnes and board members Lily Gagnon, Jacob Gallant, Robert Ondoua, Muireann McGuire and Katherine Arsenault.

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PHOTO: Lily Gagnon, Robert Ondoua and Jaxon Short, three of the worker-members of the Hard Workers Youth Service Co-op, did a great job cleaning and repainting this large fence at the back of the Évangéline-Central Credit Union in Wellington this past summer.

 

For more information, please contact
Stéphane Blanchard
Youth Development Officer
RDÉE Prince Edward Island
(902) 388-8460
stephane@rdeeipe.org