Beau's All-Natural Brewing Company has paired with Operation Go Home to give six homeless or at-risk young people a chance to work.
The small, family-run brewery is providing the jobs through BottleWorks, which collects Beau's bottles since they can't be returned to The Beer Store or LCBO outlets. The brewery picks up bottles from businesses and recycles them.
It's all thanks to a $130,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
"BottleWorks is a project that works," said Madeleine Meilleur, Ontario's minister of social services and Ottawa-Vanier MPP.
"It is innovative, it is collaborative, it is smart."
Every Beau's bottle collected means 40 cents for the company; liquor, wine and beer bottles are returned to the LCBO and The Beer Store for the deposit price. Every cent collected goes back to the business, either to cover expenses or pay the youth.
"This is for us one of the most exciting things that we've ever done because we get to help our business while helping the community, and in particular helping these youth who are at risk and homeless," said Steve Beauchesne of Beau's.
500 young people visited Operation Go Home last year.
"It's a triple or quadruple win for everyone - including the community," said Elspeth McKay, who represents the program.
"Especially the Lowertown community where we're located, because there are a lot of difficulties with homelessness."
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Jonathan Rotondo
