FARMINGTON — “We serve people to help them find jobs.”

That’s how Ted Hodges, store manager at the Layton Deseret Industries, described the mission of the store and its programs. He spoke to the Davis County Community of Promise group last week.

While owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the nonprofit organization does not discriminate in who it helps, the retired Meier & Frank executive said.

Of just over 100 people being helped with job training, well over 90 percent don’t attend any church, he said. “Many of them believe they’re being punished” because of their current lot in life, Hodges said.

“A fantastic group work there,” he said. “We love and care about them.” That includes working to bring “a little spirituality” to them.

“We hold a devotional every day. I was promoted to say how much I love all of you and how much Heavenly Father loves you,” Hodges said of his comments to the staff.

One of the employees confronted him later. She has been a meth addict, attended drug court. She doesn’t have custody of her kids. “She asked how I could say such a thing. I told her she has to communicate with him,” Hodges said.

“She came to see me on a Monday morning,” he related. That previous Saturday, night, she met a guy friends had told her about. Shortly after picking him up, the pair were stopped by two police officers. The woman thought the stop had to do with a broken tail light.

“The officer asked for I.D. not only from the driver, but from the passenger,” Hodges said. “He (passenger) got belligerent,” and the second officer came to assist. “He was frisked and cuffed,” after officers found he was wanted on three warrants for beating up women in Salt Lake County.

“She was protected” by a higher force, Hodges said. That “higher force” was confirmed shortly after when one of the police officers approached Hodges, who had spoken in an LDS stake conference. His topic was the “power of prayer.”

“A young man grabbed me after, told me he was one of those officers. We (officers) both said we need to stop that car. It was not the taillight we noticed. I was prompted to ask for the identification (of the passenger). I hope you know there had to be someone protecting her,” the officer said.

“We found lives are easier to transform if there is some spirituality,” Hodges said.

“We are there to transform lives,” he reiterated. For example, a meth addict who “hated everybody,” kept leaving and coming back, is now making $35,000 a year at a trucking company.

“She never made more than $7.50 an hour before that,” Hodges said.

D.I. helps 12 “partners,” or nonprofit agencies who provide humanitarian service.

For example, a West Jordan Seventh-Day Adventist congregation contacted Hodges. They needed 5,000 hygiene kits and 2,000 infant kits.“I made one phone call, and they were donated” for use in Guatemala, he said. “We (LDS Church) shipped them because the church was going there with a shipment” of its own.

Sometimes people ask why D.I. charges for the clothing and other items on its sales floor, Hodges said.

“We have a $1.5 million payroll,” just at the Layton store, he said. (He and several others there have volunteered their services for nine years).

He praised the generosity of the community, in terms of items donated and willingness to volunteer. It surpasses the larger Provo store, for example.

tbusselberg@davisclipper.com