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A steppingstone on the path to life
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It serves individuals with disabilities, people like Andrea Aycock.
Monday through Friday, she attends Creative Enterprises Inc., off Hi Hope Road in Lawrenceville. It’s a nonprofit, one of 21 community rehabilitation programs in Georgia.
Aycock of Dacula is one of the 100 or so clients currently enrolled in the facility’s day habilitation program or its work adjustment program.
“This place is great for people with disabilities,” said Aycock, who took a break from keyboarding when the Badie Tour stopped by Wednesday.
Much goes on at Creative Enterprises. A greenhouse, like everything else at the facility, is tended to by the clients. Plants are for sale to the public daily. A garden is chock full of zucchini, squash and pole beans. Creative Enterprises sells the produce on site and on Saturdays at the Lawrenceville Farmers Market.
Because of the drought, clients recently have taken to making and selling rain barrels. A supplier provides the facility with 55-gallon, food-grade plastic drums. The clients turn them into conservation kits.
“I bought one myself,” Thomas Macaulay, a volunteer, told me. “At $45, you can’t beat the price.”
Nor the purpose of Creative Enterprises.
It runs deeper than learning how to make rain barrels, nurture flowers, tend produce, create art or work in the production workshop (more on that later). The idea is to help people with mental and/or physical disabilities reach their highest level of social and economic functionality. To contribute to, and live in, the community.
Leigh M. Couch, CE’s executive director, and I watched clients in the workshop as they packaged packets of coffee creamer. The creamer will eventually find its way to U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Couch gave an example of the role the nonprofit plays in the lives of clients and their families.
Disabled individuals can’t be left home alone without a caretaker. If they could not attend Creative Enterprises, one of their parents, or a guardian, would have to stay with them.
“In situations where the mother is the caregiver of a disabled person, the median income is about half of what you’d find in a typical household,” Couch told me. “So this just doesn’t help the client. The mother, who’s usually the caretaker who stays home, gets to work. The client might eventually be a taxpayer, too.”
At Creative Enterprises, though, clients like Aycock are already employed.
The nonprofit contracts with local companies so its clients can work. The tasks are usually a one- or two-step process, like packaging creamer or snapping together the parts of catalytic converters for self-cleaning ovens. (Yes, there is such a thing.) Clients are paid a “piece-rate,” a federally sanctioned pay scale based on the task and the client’s ability and efficiency.
In some cases, clients progress to the point that they are employable. They might end up at Publix as baggers or on the production line of a plant. The nonprofit tries to match them with the type of job they want. It also keeps tabs on clients for up to a year after he or she has moved on, stepped into the real world.
Where you and I exist.
“People need to understand that people with disabilities are just like anybody else,” Couch said. “They want a chance, an opportunity. Does it mean they can do everything they want to? No.
“But people need to accept the disabled for who they are. Accept their strengths. Don’t focus on their weaknesses. That makes it better for everyone.”
For more information about Creative Enterprises Inc., call 770-962-3908 or visit www.ceisite.com.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Rick Badie
Comments
By Katie
June 26, 2008 10:04 AM | Link to this
What an awesome program. I’m going to go buy some veggies from them this weekend.
By Sabine Carbines
June 26, 2008 10:36 AM | Link to this
Me too! Great program!
By Sherry
June 26, 2008 2:21 PM | Link to this
Creative Enterprises provides an important service for our community. Thanks to all those who work so diligently in this worthwhile endeavor.
By lt5000
June 27, 2008 7:34 PM | Link to this
Yeaaaa. Badie wrote another article about a charity.
He writes the same article every week, with the name of the charity changed.
It’s either that or an Obama infomercial.
AJC editors, fire this dork, he doesn’t have an original bone in his body.
LT5000
By fedupingwinnett
June 28, 2008 12:25 PM | Link to this
Welcome back LT where you been?