Green Cover Seed partners with Crossroads Mission Avenue to create jobs

HASTINGS, Neb. (KSNB) – Green Cover Seed in Bladen and Crossroads Mission Avenue are working together to help clients at the shelter get back into the workforce.

The business combines seed from all over the world together to help farmers and gardeners in a variety of ways and provides bagging, labeling and packaging jobs to clients at the shelter.

Crossroads Mission Avenue Director Daniel Buller said the partnership is a great step towards helping their clients break the cycle of homelessness.

”We see a lot of elderly people at Crossroads, or people, who can’t hold a traditional job,” Buller said. “They need support in their lives to maintain in their life like employment, so we’ve been focusing on that very heavily over the last few years to make sure that we’re partnering with local businesses and offering our clients a place where they can work.”

The partnership happened when Green Seed Cover founder and co-owner, Keith Berns, who was already friends with some of the leadership of the organization, decided he wanted to find another way to both help the clients and support the organization.

”When this opportunity came up with the bird seed project, we thought, what better way to do that than to give them seed and allow them to be able to package it and sell it through their retail stores,” Berns said. “It’s just a way we can support a great local organization and local ministry.”

Along with helping the clients at the shelter, Berns also said it helps his business with retail sales and allows them to reach more people.

“We can mix the seed, but the hard work is putting it in the small bags, labeling it, displaying it and selling it in retail,” Berns said. “That’s where a lot of the hard work comes and the folks over at Crossroads are doing a great job at doing that.”

He also said he hopes the partnership grows and that they’re able to help more clients get back into the workforce and become more than just a paycheck to their clients.

”Our hope for the Crossroads clients is that they can get back on their feet, but they can rebuild their sense of self-worth,” Berns said. “To be able to do a job, earn a paycheck and then utilize that to get back on your feet, it just builds their character, builds their self-confidence back up and that’s going to be the key to getting them back to work permanently.”

Officials at Crossroads Mission Avenue are hoping that this is one of many partnerships they’re able to create with local businesses in the area.

Helping the homeless find jobs is one of the missions of Crossroads Mission Avenue in order to break the cycle of homelessness from their clients in the community.

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