C-TRAN Representative by Day, Nonprofit Worker by Night
Helping people is Cherish DesRochers’ passion. It shows in her day job as a C-TRAN Customer Service Representative. And it shows in the way she spends her time off the clock. DesRochers is the founder of Food With Friends, a local nonprofit organization that provides assistance to homeless people in the community. That means street outreach, serving food, distributing donated items or connecting people with other services and organizations. Sometimes, it means something as simple as a hug. The mission of Food With Friends is connecting with people on more than just a superficial level, DesRochers says. It’s forming relationships, she says, and meeting people where they are without judgment. DesRochers and other volunteers see many of the same people serving food every Saturday night in downtown Vancouver, for example, and know dozens by name. That human contact and connection can be hard to come by on the street, she says. More recently, Food With Friends has added another initiative to its list: the Shower Outreach Project. When a well-used public shower closed last year, DesRochers and others began looking for ways to fill an important, yet often overlooked need. Eventually they got connected with a person who had a