February 11, 2009

Three new directors have been voted onto the 2009 Harvest Project Board joining longtime Board members Irene Leschert and Don Mossop. Leaving the Board are Bob Yeager and William Varda after offering Harvest Project many years of service.

These new members reside on the North Shore and bring a wealth of knowledge and experience from a number of different backgrounds. Terry Byrnes who is well known for his past role as Coordinator and Faculty in the Adult Special Education Department at Capilano University has been the Chair of the ASE's Provincial Articulation Committee and has sat on many boards and councils.

Darrell Lim’s educational background is in organizational leadership and he has worked as a police officer, fire fighter and manager of various well-known retail chains. Neil Van Seters who has been with Telus Communications for the last 10 years brings a wide array of leadership and strategic planning experience to the slate. He currently leads a national team of sales engineers.

Under the leadership of past Chair, Bob Yeager, Harvest Project went through a structural transformation during 2008. It started with the work of Anne Duifhuis an honours student in Psychology at Trinity Western University. Anne’s thesis: A Study of Harvest Project: Faith Based Social Services in Action was a descriptive study that provided a snap shot of how Harvest Project is meeting the needs of clients on the North Shore by connecting with the churches, service clubs, resource services and donors in the community.

This thesis formed the basis for Harvest Project staff to restructure its client care program: first by separating clients into two distinct categories: core and emergency needs and then second, by making changes to daily operations to ensure core clients have greater access to client care, resource referral, food and clothing.

All aspects of Harvest Project operations were evaluated to determine how best to support this new model with staff and resources. Board Chair, Irene Leschert explains, “As a result, we enhanced our client intake program and developed a team of support staff to work in the areas that we felt would maximize results for our clients. Derek Pace our fulltime operations manager leads this team of three fulltime and three part-time personnel.”

“Now that we have a new structure in place we feel we can expand our services and it is time for us to move forward into an outreach phase. Based on statistical data from the 2008 North Shore Homeless Task Force work plan we know that there are at least 4,740 North Shore renter households at risk of homelessness.”

“While we are already serving over 500 client households, we feel we have the potential to assist many more of these North Shore residents living at the poverty level. Our plan this year is to develop the tactics to expand our reach.”

Since 1993, Harvest Project has been assisting individuals and families on the North Shore to overcome difficult life circumstances and work toward self-sufficiency. Services include: client care, resource referral, food and clothing all free of charge. Harvest Project gives away an average of $42,000 worth of groceries per month to clients and approximately $4,000 per month in free clothing.