In a small industrial kitchen in Oklahoma City, 19-year-old Levi is tending to the stove.
Levi is one of 10 employees at Pivot Preserves. The six-month job training program is run by Pivot, an Oklahoma City nonprofit that offers services to vulnerable young people facing homelessness, trying to overcome criminal pasts, or transitioning out of foster care into adulthood. The program launched last year in October, following what food services director Lydia Shelton describes as something of a happy accident.
“We got a large donation of fruit from the food bank, like pallets of berries and stuff. At the time we didn't have a ton of storage for that. And you know, berries go bad really fast. So I was like, oh, I can just make a whole bunch of jam and we'll have it on the shelf and use it for PB and J's, for our young people here on campus,” Shelton said.
The jam was so popular with everyone at Pivot, they saw it as an opportunity to start a social enterprise structured around providing some of the youth they serve with job training. Pivot Preserves currently sells six different jams and jellies, and Shelton said some of them are inspired by her family recipes.
“I learned to make jam from my parents, my grandma — my grandma made a lot of jams and jellies. So, that’s just kind of something passed down,” she said. “It’s very cool to be able to share that not only with the youth here but with our whole community here in Oklahoma City.”
Elizabeth McLeckie, Pivot’s marketing and communications manager, said the program helps the nonprofit go beyond simply connecting young people to jobs.
“We would help them get a job and we'd say, ‘All right, good luck, hope it goes well.’ And a lot of times, if they either hadn't been in that kind of environment before or if it was their first job and maybe, they've experienced some trauma in their background, it can be really hard for them to keep a job with all of those factors in place,” she said.
In addition to providing young people with a supportive work environment, Pivot Preserves offers mock job interviews, resume writing assistance, and connections to other job training outside the kitchen.
Recently, Pivot Preserves has offered a new kind of job experience with a booth at the Scissortail Park Farmers Market.
“We love being here at Scissortail. It's given us an opportunity to to tell more people about Pivot and to have some hands-on experience with customer service with our youth in the program. So, it's been really fun,” Shelton said.
That hands-on experience has been helpful for Levi, who is reaching the end of his six months with the program. He said it’s helped him build his social skills and prepared him for future jobs.
“It’s been a really great experience for me. I think I’ll be more prepared to communicate with my bosses more and communicate with my fellow workers as well. And, to advocate for myself a lot better,” he said.
Of all the job skills Pivot Preserves aims to teach, McLeckie said it boils down to showing young people they’re capable.
“Our world is so, ‘You gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps and keep going.’ But we can also encourage the people around us and speak life into them of, ‘Oh, you do this really well. Have you ever thought about this?’ And try to give them not only those tools but the encouragement to keep going and whatever that looks like from here,” she said.
McLeckie said the future of Pivot Preserves is looking bright as they’re working on collaborations with local restaurants and retailers. They’ll continue to periodically sell their preserves at the Scissortail Park Farmers Market through October.
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