Meet one of our wonderful community partners, with whom we are so proud to be sharing our mission of supporting immigrant women and families.
This quarter, meet Celine Frueh, Allagash HR Director.
Allagash decided to partner with IHP several years ago because of the creative programming and the inspiring energy of IHP mission and leadership. IHP reaches women and families who are vulnerable after arriving in the US –often without English language fluency and lacking child care and transportation to attend formal classes. Claudette’s practical creativity- going into the home, building relationships, and incorporating a plan for children into the ESL approach bridges a gap. Allagash seeks to empower women in our communities and IHP has figured out how to do this effectively with a demographic we were not reaching.
Partnering with IHP has allowed us to get to know some smart, interesting people and work on connecting the two communities (Craft Beer, recent immigrants) for mutual understanding and benefit. We were proud to do our first internship programs this past year and could not have done this successfully without the insights and efforts of Claudette and her team.
We are going to keep working together – it feels like the sky’s the limit for how we can work together! Some recent ideas include: pairing women in IHP with Allagash employees for 1:1 dialog and interview practice (note: this practice will be excellent for both parties! Our employees can learn effective communication with folks who are multilingual, and IHP students will get to practice English); collaborating on a community event at the brewery once it is safe to do so; and advanced Cross-Cultural Dialogue training for our staff, a follow up to the great introductory sessions Claudette facilitated last summer for 50+ Allagash employees.
Every year brings us closer together and we are excited to see what happens in 2022! We lift each other up.
