Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 18, 1994 TAG: 9411180080
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-19 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
When most people hear the name ``Goodwill,'' they think of disabled workers repairing secondhand clothes. They aren't wrong.
Goodwill Industries Tinker Mountain Inc. does sell donated clothes and appliances. In fact, the agency today is reopening its Salem store, which at 12,000 square feet has nearly twice the space and twice the inventory it did in August, when construction began.
But the heart of the agency is next-door to the remodeled store, in a former Kroger supermarket on East Main Street. That building a month ago replaced Goodwill's Troutville workshop.
Joann Hobart, who was with Tinker Mountain for three years before the 1990 merger with Goodwill Industries, works there. She's in charge of punching perforated slits in circular pieces of laminated paper. The circles fit together to make foot-sizing devices that are sold to podiatrists.
Her job is one of the hardest in the Goodwill Industries Tinker Mountain workshop, which employs about 100 people who, like Hobart, are mentally or physically disabled.
Helping the disabled isn't new for Goodwill, but the method is.
In years past, Goodwill workshops were places where the disabled learned how to sew buttons, mend clothing and repair damaged appliances.
"Now if you bring in a toaster and the heating element is bad, by the time you replace the element and pay for one hour of labor, you'd have to sell that toaster for more than you can buy a new one for at Wal-Mart," said Executive Director Roger Matthews. " ... Our disposable economy made what we were doing obsolete."
Today Goodwill is run like a subcontractor for other companies and employment agencies for the disabled, who are referred there by the state rehabilitation center.
"The lecture on day one is Goodwill is not your home," Matthews said. "Everyone we get we're trying to move through here and into the community."
But he realizes that's a goal not everyone can reach.
"For some people, Goodwill becomes the employer of last resort. They can't get a job anywhere else. So as long as they're producing something, they can work here," Matthews said.
To accommodate those who can't leave and to pay for its programs, Goodwill contracts with businesses.
The disabled workers act as the labor pool, and they get paid on the basis of what they produce, with some earning as much as $280 every two weeks, while others with more severe disabilities may make only $2 in the same period.
They package cosmetics for Elizabeth Arden Co., remanufacture printer toner cartridges for ITT Corp. and put together repair kits for Graham White Manufacturing Co. Each month they do about $100,000 worth of business.
And they do quality work at a good price, said Dave Edwards of Dillard Paper Co. Goodwill Industries Tinker Mountain workers put together personal-hygiene convenience kits that Dillard sells.
"We've been working with them for 12 years, and we've been very satisfied with their work. We've never even looked for anyone else over the years," said Edwards, an assistant manager.
by CNB