Stephanie Gauthier

Stephanie Gauthier discovered her passion for feeding kids while completing her Nutrition and Food Science Degree at the University of Alberta. She started at BB4CK 7 years ago as the Kitchen Coordinator, working at BB4CK’s downtown kitchen, leading volunteers and prepping lunches for kids who went to school hungry. Today, Stephanie is the Director of Organizational Development. She is caring, people-focused and creative.

Bethany Ross 

Bethany Ross has always been passionate about working with organizations that create opportunities for kids. She has a background in Not-For-Profit Studies from Mount Royal University. Bethany joined BB4CK as a Sustainability Coordinator 7 years ago. Since then, her priority has been to connect people in the community to ways where they can make a difference for kids. Currently, she is the Executive Director of Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids. She is a problem solver, a great listener and an impeccable writer.

What makes BB4CK a great place to work?

Bethany: Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids is a nonprofit organization that connects kids to the food they need. We do that in a couple different ways, but the primary way is by working with community volunteers to prepare lunches and deliver them to schools for kids to eat during the school day. This is our longest standing program; we’ve been doing it for over 30 years. We work with over 350 volunteers per week who do the preparation of lunches in over 30 kitchens throughout the city of Calgary, and we’re able to deliver these lunches to over 200 schools.

In the last few years schools have become less available because of COVID, so we have been pivoting, learning, and adjusting, and have recently piloted programs where we can explore feeding kids outside of schools.

Stephanie: In terms of what makes Brown Bagging a great place to work, we all have a passion for the work that we do and we all feel so strongly about our organization’s purpose. Being able to go to work every day and make a difference, especially with kids, is something that resonates with all of us and helps drive the work we do. We really have an amazing group of people who not only care about what they do, but they care about each other. We focus on learning about each other, we learn about each other’s whole selves.

To do this, especially when COVID first started, we implemented a staff meeting every two weeks where we don’t talk about work stuff, we just talk about individual and personal stuff. We call it Caring Connect, and it’s meant to replace the “water cooler talk.” We sometimes make a playlist or do an activity, but it’s just a way for us to intentionally connect about non-work things. We then have a work-related staff meeting every other week as well. We also work all over the city in different pockets or teams, and we encourage teams to come together at the beginning of each day to connect with each other.

Bethany: Because we have a small number of employees (there are 19 of us total), we are very nimble and can make a change if someone has suggestions on how to improve a process or a system. There is little bureaucracy or hoops to jump through. Similarly, because we are so small, there is very little overlap in the responsibilities of each role. We therefore specifically build systems that support people in doing their work and being the experts in their own work.

Additionally, in terms of team building and staff appreciation, because we are a smaller company that is entirely donation-funded, we have to be more creative than maybe some of the larger companies who can afford to deliver lunch once a week to employees. We work hard on ways to bring folks together in inexpensive ways, and that forces us to be more personal at times.

Stephanie: I would also say that because we’re so small, we’re able to recognize that people feel appreciated in different ways, and we try to be intentional about making those appreciation gestures different or more individualized.

How would you characterize the organizational culture at BBC4K? In what ways do you cultivate that culture? 

Stephanie: I would say that we spend a lot of time focusing on the connection piece. It’s harder with COVID, we utilize multiple avenues of connection to understand each of our staff members. We make sure that everyone is heard and valued, that we work together as a team, and yet still make sure that everyone has autonomy and ownership over their own work and responsibilities. I think this really helps to empower our staff.

Bethany: Almost every role in our organization is unique and no two people have the same job. So sometimes that can be isolating for them, that is why we create spaces for people to be able to work together if they’re facing a problem within their own role. We encourage people to reach out to fellow staff members and be generous with their time if a co-worker needs help problem-solving, even if it’s to fix a problem within another person’s role.

As a service organization that works directly with so many individuals in need, at times it must be challenging not to get emotionally burnt out. In what ways does BBC4K support your employees’ mental health and emotional needs?

Stephanie: We’ve had a lot of conversations at the leadership level on how to set boundaries as an organization, both at the individual level but also at the organizational level. We support our staff and let them decide what they need. Everyone is different and deals with that weight differently, so we really create space, ask people how they’re doing, what they need for self-care, and allow people to do whatever it is they need to do to take care of themselves in that way.

Bethany: About 18 months ago we started offering unlimited wellness days. People can use it as a preventative measure to support their mental health, or to go to a doctor or dentist appointment, we don’t ask for a reason. We’ve been learning to build trust around that and to date we’ve not had anyone abuse it. And I think that really speaks to the great team we have, that we truly believe that people want to be here at work when they can be, and if they’re taking a wellness day it’s because they need it.

Stephanie: In our organization we have three values: people, trust, and action. And that is just a true representation of the first two, that we trust in our people to take care of themselves and also take care of this work that we all so strongly believe in.

Working on the leadership team at such a great community organization must be incredibly rewarding. What is the best part about your job? What is the most challenging?

Bethany: For me, I think in some ways they’re the same thing. The best thing is the opportunity to make an incredible impact, feeding over 5,000 kids is such a privilege. On the other hand, that’s absolutely the most challenging part, that there’s an incredible group of folks who are counting on us to show up for them, and also an incredible staff that rely on us to build an organization where they can do their best work. It’s a double-edged sword.

Stephanie: I would echo the same thing. Sometimes it’s hard, we do fail sometimes, and modeling that to our employees is all part of it.

How has the pandemic changed the way you approach leadership, if at all?

Stephanie: I would say that the circumstances we were thrown into because of the pandemic really just aligned with and reinforced our values. For example, the intentional nature of recognizing the whole self in our staff members, we were doing before the pandemic and that was just reinforced by the remote work situation that COVID forced upon us.

Bethany: For me, it was a reminder of our foundational purpose, which is to feed kids daily. There was that one day, in March 2020, when they just closed schools and we had to figure out how to reach those kids. That day everyone showed up in the kitchen, and we immediately went into problem-solving mode, and there was never a question of whether or not we should still strive to feed kids. It just reinforced that we are all here because we care about the work and we care about the kids we’re feeding. We can always lean on that foundational purpose at the end of the day. And that passion just makes me so proud of this incredible team, and we’re so fortunate to be able to do this work with this amazing staff.

Stephanie: The passion and drive within this team is inspiring. We’re so lucky to have such a great team.

– Hannah Baker bh