The long awaited Scent of a Sandwich is now open! They do eat in, take out, and catering of – you guessed it – sandwiches!

In particular, they make hot sandwiches stuffed to the gills with gourmet meats, cheeses and veggies. They also have a nutella and bananna option for a sophisticated alternative to the old favorite PB&J. Their catering menu is more extensive, offering breakfast pastries, fruit platters, cheese platters, dips and more. They also offer free consultations if you want do do an extra special lunch presentation for your office, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with Thomas and let him know exactly what you need!

What we really admire about Scent of a Sandwich is that they’re on board with the idea of inclusive revitalization, where economic development that takes place in historically under-served communities like the DTES is intentionally inclusive of existing residents in businesses. Scent of a Sandwich has demonstrated their commitment to inclusive revitalization by partnering with local employment agencies like BOB and Pathways, hiring locally through the Pathways 100 Hired Challenge, and improving their formerly vacant storefront on Main Street between Pender and Abbot (in partnership with BOB and the City of Vancouver’s Facade Program). BOB also put on a BusinessLinks session with them to do a culinary & catering staff skills training event.

Furthermore, they’re also interested in being sustainable, and are doing all their deliveries by tricycle! Looks like they’re using disposable plates at the moment, though…surely that will change soon once they get more established.

You can check them out in their new location at 418 Main St. Welcome to the neighborhood from the whole team here at BOB!

While reading this blog posting, may we suggest that you play the following music. http://tinysong.com/fV1b

Now that we’ve set the atmosphere..

The Challenge

At BOB, we want to challenge ourselves to act more sustainable and authentically green.  So..  In order to challenge ourselves we would like to have a challenger!  We are hoping that YOU or your workplace will be up for this challenge and we’ll see how it goes!

The Point!

We want to be more green and recycle..  But it can be quite intimidating.  So we have one challenge a month, so that it is manageable and you can learn the ways of the green.

The Challenge!

• 4 people from BOB, would like to challenge a team of 4.  Or if you have a bigger or smaller group, we’ll just adjust how we score. 
• You need a team name.  And it better be good.

• Each month there will be one ‘green/recycling task’ that each person in the challenge will have to complete.

• The team who has the highest percentage of participation that complete challenges each wins!!

What do they win, you ask?  Fantastic question!  The winning team receives the ‘cup of awesome’ for one month!!!  (I’ve attached a picture of said cup of awesome)  And we can all get together for a ‘green lunch’ (also known as a salad potluck) to celebrate all of our awesomeness.

The Cup of Awesome

6 Month Green Challenge!

(one task per month)

1. Home & Office Recycling – Recycle paper and plastics.  The PROPER plastics.  Know the numbers and throw them in.
2. Beyond the Blue Box – A month of recycling all household and work plastics that aren’t city recycled.  And find a venue close to your house to take them!  (Brittania is close for me..)
3. Paint! – Find old paint, or someone else’s old paint that is going to waste and take it to the closest paint recycler.
4. Batteries – You know the drill..
5. Electronics – Same drill..
6. Compost.  This one will require some creativity by us.  But we can do it!!

For all of the green yogis out there..  Yes, this may be beginner.  But some of us are.  Join anyway!  Show us how it’s done.

Let me know if you are in..   And let the best greeny’s win!!  (even though, really, we all win in the end)

To accept this challenge (or for more info) contact Emily and Lani at jobpostings@bobics.org

September 2011

BOB is Involved with some Great Local Businesses

As you may know, BOB’s mandate is to support an economic development model for Vancouver’s inner-city that is inclusive of existing residents and businesses. This is no small task, so we try to take a comprehensive approach. We work with entrepreneurs to help them get loans and grants to start their businesses. We work with business owners to provide HR services that support hiring people who are from the inner-city and have challenges to find and keep employment. We work with jobseekers to connect them to the opportunities we post. And we work with new employees to give them the practical support they need to keep their job and succeed.

We believe that this two pronged approach – working with businesses and residents – is key to creating new opportunities in the inner-city economy that help build community and social capital. A great example of the success of this model is the newly opened W2 Media Café in the Woodwards Building.

The BOB Loans program provided a portion of the start-up funding for the café. This funding complemented the countless hours of hard work W2 management and volunteers put in since 2002 to make their vision of a socially inclusive media arts and culture centre in the DTES become a reality.

W2 hired all local DTES and East Van residents to staff the café. They posted positions through their networks and through BOB’s JobPostings service. BOB’s BusinessLinks program assisted the W2 team with interviewing and candidate selection, and also sponsored barista training for 12 folks to get FoodSafe certification, customer service training, a programming overview of the media cafe, and more. Some of the successful candidates also received further support through our Supported Employment Program, getting the bus tickets and food vouchers they needed to make it to their first paycheck, and the life skills support and resources they needed to help them adjust to life on the job.

BusinessLinks Barista Training - Photo courtesy Sakura Yoshita & W2 Media Cafe

Cafe staff are now getting great opportunities to build skills and pursue activities beyond the cafe counter; several of our BusinessLinks graduates enthusiastically report getting involved with event co-ordination, volunteer coordination and program development for projects like the W2 Letterpress Studio and kids & youth media camp.

We congratulate W2 on the great job they have done building a fantastic social enterprise and inclusive community resource centre from the ground up.

Did You Know…

Did you know that the BOB Loans Program has supported the start-up of several other local businesses you may have noticed? These include the reopening of Save-on-Meats at their iconic 43 West Hastings storefront, Scent of a Sandwich (opening soon at 418 Main), Calabash at 428 Carrall St, and Yogiberry at 306 Carrall St.

Andrew and Lani at Save-on-Meats. Lani's coffee is by W2 Media Cafe.

New Job Postings

Visit www.bobics.org and look under ‘HR Services’ to apply.

Intakes for the Cycleback Bicycle Repair Program are on-going. Contact Lani at lani.johnson@bobics.org to book an appointment.

W2 Media Café
Senior Barista
Cook

Recycling Alternative
Recycling Sorter/Tote Washer

Events
SHINE Supper – September 19th
All past and present clients of BOB’s Supported Employment Program are welcome to join us for dinner at the BOB office from 4-6pm! Catered meal by Potluck Cafe. RSVP to 778-328-7660 or emily.smith@bobics.org

The City of Vancouver has approved a plan to reduce the speed limit on Hastings between Abbot and Jackson Streets on a trial basis. However, there continues to be some opposition to this plan, and some of us at BOB have had face to face conversations with folks who don’t support it. I find this opposition curious for the following reason: traffic calming and measures to reduce speed are commonplace in other community-oriented residential neighborhoods in Vancouver, so why wouldn’t it be acceptable to implement speed reduction measures in the Downtown Eastside?

In a recent discussion with my colleagues, we came up with a few ideas on the subject.

This neighborhood is used by many as a travel corridor to get downtown. These commuters’ objective is often to travel through the area as quickly as possible, in part because of the way the neighborhood has been stigmatized as neglected ghetto of crime and poverty. While some of that may be true, it doesn’t account for the fact that there is an underrepresented and diverse community of wonderful people here who call the DTES home and deserve to have it recognized and celebrated as such. Traveling through the neighborhood at 60+kph is certainly way too fast to get acquainted with the many unique community services, architectural features, libraries, urban farms, art galleries, eateries, and shops that exist here in the heart of the city.

Furthermore, many of the opponents of the speed reduction plan protest on the grounds that it is the pedestrian’s responsibility to see if it is safe before they cross. Sure, common sense dictates that this would be the best-case scenario. But life on any busy street is unpredictable. To those who hold this view I ask: Are you a driver? How would you feel if you struck and injured or killed a pedestrian, even if it was “their fault”? It doesn’t matter who the person is, where they live, or whether they made the mistake. No one wants to be involved in a pedestrian-vehicle accident. Therefore, slowing down to increase driver awareness and reaction time, thereby reducing pedestrian fatalities, benefits everyone.

And as many pedestrians know, crossing a busy street is not an easy task at the best of times for the most able-bodied person. There are a variety of challenges that can make it even harder. In BOB’s Supported Employment Program we work with folks who have a variety of barriers to help them get on the job; many of the barriers we see actually would make crossing the street a challenge too! Have you been low income for a prolonged period of time, with a degenerative eye condition for which you cannot afford glasses? You literally cannot see well enough to cross the street in safety. Are you experiencing psychosis due to a mental health condition or drug use? If so, the reality of cars speeding down the street or the relative safety of a crosswalk may not be as it seems to you. Are you elderly or physically disabled? You may need more time to cross the street than the crosswalk allocates. And the list goes on. Are any of these cases any less worth slowing down for than, say, a kid in a school zone chasing a ball into the street? I think not.

The DTES is home to a high population of individuals with a variety of challenges in part because there is a concentration of services here, as well as a much higher degree of access to affordable housing options than the rest of the city. Every neighborhood has its own characteristic demography, and municipal policy, programming and infrastructure is targeted to reflect those special community traits. Think about your own neighborhood or your child’s school zone and how traffic is managed there. Let’s applaud the City of Vancouver for taking action on this important issue while we slow down to stop and smell the roses (or gaze at the swiss chard at SOLEFood Urban Farm, or get to know some of the local characters who make this community great).

Other news on this topic:

Vancouver Sun

BC Cycling Coalition

DTES Pedestrian Safety Project

All photos in this post courtesy of BURST! Creative Group

That’s right, the much anticipated W2 Media Cafe is open for business! They’re serving yummy Saltspring coffee and a variety of other delicious offerings. Come for the food & drink, stay for the community, politics, media and art!

The media cafe is collectively run social enterprise with a mandate to provide accessible technology for media and communications to all those to all those who need it. And that need is a pressing one: according to W2′s statistics, at least 6,000 DTES residents are without telephone, internet, or computer access. We see this in BOB’s Supported Employment Program, where many of our clients describe having no phone or computer at home, and get only limited access to communications technology through inner-city community resources that are often very busy and only open during standard business hours; many see this lack of access to technology as an obstacle to achieving their goals in life and on the job. It can also make it hard to find a job, secure permanent housing, and assert one’s voice to advocate for political change.

Fojan, an acting student, is making delicious coffee and helping with W2 programming

In terms of community, W2 hired all local DTES and East Van residents to staff the cafe. BOB’s BusinessLinks program assisted the W2 team with with hiring outreach and candidate selection, and sponsored barista training for 12 folks to get FoodSafe certification, customer service training, a programming overview of the media cafe, and more. Cafe staff are getting great opportunities to build skills and pursue activities beyond the cafe counter; several of our BusinessLinks graduates enthusiastically report getting involved with event coordination and program development for projects like the W2 Letterpress Studio and kids & youth media camp.

Debbie is a mother of 3 made temporarily homeless by unwanted apartment renovations in East Vancouver. She plays goalie for the DTES Women’s Street Soccer team and is going to Paris to play in the 2011 Homeless World Cup. She and her family are now well housed. She cites her employment at the cafe, as well as the community she connected with there, as a key part of her return to housing stability. Congratulations Debbie!

Tech geeks, artists, and anyone interested in DIY electronics will appreciate the interactive light display largely DIY’d by W2′s Tech Director WillStacey. You control the interface from within the cafe. Adjust the display pattern and the RGB scale, and look up to see the results! More exciting interactive art and technology installations to come through their Media Artist in Residence Program. Sensitive to the needs of the neighborhood, the cafe also provides free community meeting space, publicly accessible washrooms and lounge, a community media lab, and much more.

BOB is pleased to be part of supporting the start-up of W2 Media Cafe through our Loans Program. We congratulate all the founders and staff on the cafe opening, and look forward to seeing more great things come out of this ambitious project founded on grassroots principles of social inclusion. Well done!