Blog

Team Highlight: Facilities

Our Facilities team is essential to the functioning of YESS Programs. Through their hard work, our spaces and buildings are kept clean, safe, and maintained. We talked to Darin Maxwell, Operations Manager, about his team and the impact they create every day.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at YESS!

For the past 25 years my career has been in Information Technologies supporting educational organizations, initially with K-12 learning and then with training in the Oil & Gas sector. In April of 2020 my position, which I had held for 14 years, was eliminated due to restructuring during the Covid-19 pandemic. It was this event that opened up the opportunity for me to bring my organization and team building skills to YESS in the role of Operations Manager: a completely new career path with the rewarding opportunity of supporting vulnerable youth within the community in which I was born and raised.

What are some of the responsibilities of the Facilities team?

The facilities team maintains, cleans, and cares for YESS’s properties. We make sure our youth have access to clean secure sleeping quarters, shower and laundry facilities, and sanitized spaces in which to access the many resources YESS provides, all while minimizing their exposure amidst a global pandemic.

How does the work the Facilities team does contribute to the YESS mission to walk beside youth on their journeys towards healing and appropriate community integration?

My team’s work provides the physical elements our city’s most vulnerable youth need in order to bring their best selves forward into our programs. We provide the resources for them to continue their journey towards healing and appropriate community integration rested, clean, and fed.

What is one thing you wish the community knew about YESS youth?

How quickly they respond with the delight and enthusiasm of kids everywhere when provided with secure, safe spaces in which to heal and grow.