Hiring people with disabilities has been a healthy business decision for a gym in the New Orleans suburbs, improving the workplace while providing skills and work experience to these individuals and easing the demand on taxpayer-supported services.
Kari Dequine Harden, who works in the New Orleans bureau of the Baton Rouge’s daily, The Advocate, visited the Elmwood Fitness Center of Harahan, Louisiana, earlier this month for her December 26 article, “Partnership offers job opportunities to disabled.” Elmwood has been working with Jefferson Parish Human Services Authority (JPHSA), Access to Meaningful Employment (AcME), and Magnolia School to provide supported employment opportunities to people with disabilities for several years now. Currently, more than 10% of the company workforce are people with disabilities (9 out 95 paid employees), with eight others undergoing training.
Harden focuses on two workers, Andrew Bourgeois and Amanda Root, both of whom have a 100% attendance record. Bourgeois has been an employee for more than year, while Root is one of the trainees. The Advocate photographer John McCusker captures them both working out on the floor, where they have responsibilities for keeping the equipment and amenities in their respective area in good condition for the customers.
While Bourgeois and Root are learning skills everyone learns on their first job — collaborating with co-workers, punctuality, time management — it is also helping these individuals move forward in their life. AcME executive director, Eve Belcas, uses Bourgeois as an example, telling Harden:
Self-sufficiency is an ultimate goal for those who are able to follow the path to paid employment…Bourgeois just started taking classes at Delgado Community College. Belcas said he had taken some online classes, but with the new skills he built at Elmwood in terms of interacting socially, she said his parents are ‘beyond elated,’ and attribute his progress as a college student — and as a person — to his work experience.
Elmwood is one of 25 employers partnering to bring these opportunities to people with disabilities in the Greater New Orleans area. JPHSA director for the developmental disabilities division, Nicole Green, says the more businesses participate the better they are able to match a job with a person’s interests and abilities. Harden writes:
While employers can receive tax benefits, Green said they also often find that individuals with disabilities are hardworking and loyal — ‘some of the best workers you can get,’ she said.
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Image by Upstate Options Magazine (Hank Hession).