Profile on Lucas Noel, youth program coordinator
Meet Lucas Noel, a youth program coordinator with Spirit of the Children Society, a New Westminster group that helps First Nations people, from the pre-natal to elderly stages. Noel hosts a group of about 10 First Nations youth, 13 to 19 years old, from Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam and Port Moody. Noel, 25, is Ojibway, and his secret weapon is food. He hangs out with the teens after school and makes them dinner, so they have a safe place to go and a good, home-cooked meal.
What do you try to impart to these children?
That they have somewhere safe to go and that people care about them. I try to make sure they are good to each other and other people and they get to experience as much as they would get to experience in a home with more resources, because a lot of them don’t have a lot of money.
What kind of food do you cook for them?
Everything. Like, any country. I’ve made German food like schnitzel and spaetzle, and I’ve done falafel.
What do the kids think of you?
I don’t know, they like me, they like my food. A lot of them make jokes (that) they come here for the food.
How did you get into this type of work?
I got a job doing summer daycamps for kids between the ages of six to 12, and then I was really successful, and they eventually asked me to cover for someone who injured themselves and couldn’t cook. … Then I took on full-time work just being the cook. And eventually they decided to take me on to work with youth.
What are you most passionate about in your job?
I think I really like being able to show them that they are cared about, and I do that through food and also just listening to what they have to say and telling them what they deserve to hear. … I like being able to make the kids feel good about themselves.
What’s the hardest part about your job?
Oh, it can be very depressing because a lot of youths’ families have difficult and traumatic living situations or have histories of trauma. You get exposed to a lot of things you couldn’t even imagine, and you have to work past that and try to be happy knowing what has happened to some of these individuals. That part is kind of sad, knowing bad things happen to good people. But the good outweighs the bad, and it’s a lot of fun.
