Pizza, pastries and paycheque problems: Crust Bakery is on the brink of laying off 6 staff
Nick King, head of Crust Craft Bakery in St. John's, nearly had to lay off most of his young staff this week. It's still under threat unless Choices for Youth can find provincial funding. (Malone Mullin/CBC)
Nick King already had the pink slips typed up.
The head of Crust Craft Bakery was on his way to deliver them to six of his nine young employees Wednesday when he was called down: Choices for Youth, he learned, was floating some emergency money to keep the kids on the books while they waited for a potential grant from a provincial funding agency.
"We had a close call," King said, speaking to CBC News on Thursday.
It was the latest scramble for the non-profit, which has grappled with a turbulent week after losing $16 million in federal funding. Sixteen full-time staff at Choices for Youth have already been laid off.
Money to pay the young workers is sorely needed to keep Crust Craft Bakery, one of the non-profit's remaining social enterprises, running at its current capacity.
The non-profit was counting on most of those millions from Ottawa to continue running its job training and employment programs and pay wages to the vulnerable young people working at its social enterprises.
It's had to close its manufacturing and construction companies, but was able to keep its thrift store, The Neighbourhood, with reduced hours.
The bakery on Pearson Street is still running on a skeleton crew, though, King said. Even with Wednesday's floated money, Crust has lost some of its supervising staff.
"The federal government, I do think they dropped the ball here big time, if I can speak candidly about that," said King, standing in the middle of what was supposed to be a bustling new location for the bakery on LeMarchant Road.
But with the non-profit's budget now stretched so thin, it's not clear what the future holds.
"It was a big amount of money that we were looking forward to," he said.
Social Development Canada told CBC News this week that it received an unprecedented number of applications for its youth employment fund this year, with more than 1,000 agencies looking for a grant.
Provincial Housing Minister John Abbott said Wednesday the Newfoundland and Labrador government was asking Ottawa to restore funding for Choices for Youth, and said the province would try to scrape together funds in the meantime.
Abbott said the province should have been involved in that funding decision, given the essential role Choices for Youth plays in Newfoundland and Labrador.
King says the jobs at Crust Bakery offer kids a way into the job market they might not otherwise get. Employees get steady shifts, wages and other supports, plus experience they can use in the real world.
"A lot of those jobs aren't really going away, from dishwashing all the way up to cooking," King says.
The paycheques, too, keep the working young people in stable housing.
"With employment comes money," says King, "being able to pay rent and and buy food."
Choices for Youth is still looking at other funding sources.
Jen Crowe, the non-profit's executive director, said in a statement Friday that Choices for Youth was able to find other jobs in the community for four out of 12 of its young trainees it had to lay off so far, and is actively looking for pots of money within the province to keep the remaining trainees at The Neighbourhood and Crust Bakery employed long-term.
In the meantime, though, King says a boom in business would help.
"Buy pizza for sure," he said.
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