This is a first time for this blogger. So bear with me, please, as I enter an arena I am totally unfamiliar with. I represent The Nezinscot Guild, which is a social purpose enterprise in rural Maine, well, sort of rural. We manufacture wooden gift crates and boxes and perform industrial repackaging and assemblies for a variety of industries. Our social purpose is providing employment to people with developmental disabilities and brain injuries. We do this in a dynamic small business.
Our payroll varies from 30 to 40 people contingent on demand for our products and services. Currently we employ 20 people with a wide range of disabilities and they all seem to love their work. I know this because they get a little cranky when there is downtime or layoffs. We pay piece rated wages utilizing the federal sub-minimum wage certificate from the United States Department of Labor. We also pay hour wages to people with disabilities who can demonstrate a satisfactory level of productivity ( not 100% productivity, but satisfactory productivity).
The reasons for this exchange is to promote our cause definitely. But also I’d like to exchange ideas on reaching new markets for our socially branded products and maybe find some friends with innovative ideas, network connections and even a bit of private financial support for our mission.
The financial support reason sometimes seems like kind of a pipe dream because there are so many people in desperate need and so many non-profits being strangled by the economy and state and federal budget cuts currently. There are so many people (especially children) in need, that one might feel guilty advocating for his or her own people in need because he or she knows of other people that appear to have greater needs. I’m like everybody else, I guess, wondering how did we get in such a state of affairs that people who advocate for other people in need have to connive and compete for dollars and support with other advocates who are equally dedicated to helping people in need.
Anyway, we here at The Nezinscot Guild, are determined to succeed in this crazy environment. We need to keep 30, 40 maybe even 50 people working through this mess. We’re going to do it by growing our social purpose businesses, trying new things, making new friends, openning new markets for our quality products and services and we’re going to do it without any tax payer dollars.
In short, we’re going to continue to be responsible for providing work for people with obstacles to employment because they are our friends, our neighbors and have a profound desire to be productive members of society.
We have a web site if you’d like to find out more about such things as The Nezinscot Guild, wooden boxes and gift crates, social purpose enterprise, re-packaging, kitting, assemblies. And, oh yea, did I mention The Original Maine Lobster Kit?
Dan O'Shea
Kevin Ellingwood
