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Modeling: Another Way to Advocate

By Joan Leotta

Mae West once said, “A model’s just an imitation of the real thing.” If that’s true, then an encouraging trend is taking place both in the real world and in media representations: a rising profile for people with disabilities.

Take the January 2012 Target Corporation circular featuring Ryan Langford for example. Ryan, a six-year-old boy with Down’s syndrome, is just one of the happy crowd in an advertisement that has been hailed as “wonderfully inclusive.”

Doris Stinga of FunnyFace Today, Inc. (FFT), the New York City modeling agency that books jobs for Ryan, says that over the past six years, use of models with disabilities has been increasing. According to Stinga, children with disabilities are in demand for both corporate advertising and other print outlets such as school books. “The current market in print advertising is for children with obvious disabilities that are visible in photographs,” she states. When ads feature these children, companies can communicate a clear message of inclusiveness.

Six-year old model Kyrie Ukema

Six-year old model Kyrie Ukema

Target’s use of Ryan in its recent ad campaign underscores the company’s accepting attitude toward differences. “Target is committed to diversity and inclusion in every aspect of our business, including our advertising campaigns,” says spokesperson Jessica Carlson. “Target has included people with disabilities in our advertising for many years and will continue to feature people that represent the diversity of communities across the country.”

Irv Field, talent agent and co-owner of Elen’s Kids, another New York–based agency that works with FFT, says that any child is a potential model. A child simply needs a happy personality and the ability to follow directions.The FFT agency, which specializes in print and commercial modeling, has a division devoted to children and encourages participation from anyone regardless of disability status. “I solicit advertising agencies and companies on behalf of my clients,” says Stinga. Among the child models she handles are those with Down’s syndrome, some who use wheelchairs, and little people.

Although modeling as a profession has a reputation for promoting unhealthy body images, in the case of children with disabilities, the pursuit has often proven to be a self-image booster. In fact, some parents view modeling as another way to advocate for their children. Their view is that the more often children with disabilities are seen as participating in normal life, the stronger the message becomes that they are individuals not defined by disability.

Paula Ukema, mother of six-year-old model Kyrie Ukema, explains, “I want my little one to open up a magazine and see other faces like hers—to know that she can do anything. I want her to be happy and I do not want people to see disability as the first thing they notice when they see her.”

Kyrie’s positive involvement with modeling began at a very young age. “We belong to the National Down’s Syndrome Society and heard through that about a modeling opportunity for a child with Down’s between ages of newborn and 18 months,” Ukema relates. “At that time Kyrie was just under 18 months old. We sent in some snapshots and were selected. I loved the excitement of it and so did Kyrie.”

Ukema says, “For us, the modeling—as with everything else that we do—is all about being an advocate for our child.”

Amanda Langford, Ryan’s mother, explains her motivation for Ryan’s modeling is to give him an opportunity “to participate in an activity where he is on a level playing field with the other children who are competing.” For Ryan, the job suits him. “He is cute and he can compete,” says his mom. “He is cooperative and has a good time on the shoots. It’s not about the money. It is about having something that is all his own. As long as Ryan enjoys it we will do it.”

“We’ve loved every shoot that we have been on,” Langford, adds. Everyone on the set “treats the children with respect,” she relates. “Ryan has a lot of fun.”

Langford appreciates that times are changing for the better in terms of visibility for people with disabilities. “I love the fact that the modeling industry and even Hollywood is becoming more and more open to people with disabilities,” she notes. “There is the girl who plays Becky on Glee. All of this shows the public that disability does not define the person who has it.”

Sacrifices of Modeling

Introducing a child to the world of modeling requires sacrifice for any family. For example, before a first assignment is given, families pay costs for getting photos taken and going to auditions, called “look-sees.”

Travel expenses are not reimbursed to and from a booked shoot, generally held in cities with major advertising agencies like New York, Chicago, Miami or Los Angeles. Langford drives her son from New Jersey to New York City, a long commute. For Ukema, the drive is four and a half hours from her upstate–New York home into the city. Neither Ukema’s nor Langford’s other children are interested in modeling, so arrangements must be made for them each time the modeling child gets a call. Calls can come as late as the day before a shoot, so notice is often short. Finally, the photo shoots usually take place on weekdays, so parents must pull the child model out of school.

When the assignment is given and the child is paid, sometimes the photos are not used. And when that payment is made, it is often a relatively small amount. Modeling is not a way to ensure future financial stability for a child, Ukema reports. “On one shoot we got $245 dollars—just enough to pay the parking ticket and gas to and from downtown New York City to our home.” Still, she says, “I try to put a little aside to buy things Kyrie wants. Now we are saving for a swing set for her.”

Talent agent Irv Field agrees that “modeling, for children, is not about money. It is about making forever memories with a fun experience.” It’s also an occupation that’s easy to take up. No special classes or training are necessary.

A good agent makes sure that all state child labor laws are considered. Modeling has more relaxed requirements than working on stage, radio or television, and for this reason offers a more welcoming opportunity for children looking to break in to the entertainment industry.

Modeling is just one of many ways that parents of children with disabilities can fill their children’s lives with good memories and a sense of self-worth. For example, Ukema has also followed Kyrie’s interests and given her a worthwhile pursuit by starting a dance group for her. As Sue Thomas, whose life story as a deaf lip reader for the FBI was made into a television series, says, “The more opportunities you can find to have your child excel at whatever he or she enjoys, the better it is.”

Thinking about Modeling for Your Child?

The sources contacted for this article specialize in print media. However, Doris Stinga of FunnyFace Today (FFT) has this advice for parents considering any type of modeling for their children: “Do not listen to someone who comes up to you in a mall and wants to take several hundred dollars worth of pictures to get your child started in modeling.” Legitimate agencies are licensed and bonded and will not charge a fee for photos. While not all agencies belong to local Better Business Bureaus, parents should check to see if there are complaints against an agency before signing up.

Even infants are being used as models. And while of course, the better the photo, the better a child’s chances will be, a reputable agency will use most of the photos sent in to consider the child as a model. Both Amanda Langford and Paula Ukema sent their agents photos they had taken themselves of their children. However, for professional photos, a good agent can connect parents with a reputable photo service.

Paula Ukema tried to act as her daughter Kyrie’s agent when she started out, looking around for opportunities in her area with manufacturers of baby products and the like. However, she soon decided that using an agent was worth the cost. Print agents charge a commission of about 20% or more on a shoot. The agent does a lot of work for this money, calling around to advertising firms and companies to find work for the child model.

Families who do not live in an area with large advertising firms, can try calling local magazines and publishers of small parenting magazines to see if there are any who take their own advertising photos. (Author’s note: I once exchanged the fee for writing an article for a magazine cover opportunity on a small local parenting magazine for my two children. More than twenty-five years later, my daughter still recalls the fun of being a model for a day and of being on the cover of a magazine.)

Once jobs start coming, parents should keep “tear sheets” (copies of the ads in which the child appeared) and prepare a résumé that lists each jobs the child has had.

Those who are serious about a career in modeling will eventually need professional headshots or a composite photo card containing 5 photos.

Classes in modeling for older children are always useful, but all of the agents we spoke with said that the only requirement for young children is that the child is happy and can follow directions. A child going on to stage, TV or film opportunities usually does need acting classes.

A reputable agency will be aware of applicable child labor requirements and make sure that a child does not work longer in one day than the state allows. Several reliable agencies with children’s divisions are FFT, Ford, Wilhemina, Product and Elen’s Kids. Most require you to submit photos that will not be returned. Many will not acknowledge submissions unless they are interested in using the child. But with some diligence, a happy spirit, and a smile, your child might enjoy the life of a model, too.

Wheels in Style—Adaptive clothing from Izzy Camilleri

By Joan Leotta

Izzy Camilleri

Izzy Camilleri, Canadian fashion designer. Camilleri broke new ground with what is the world’s first line of everyday adaptable clothing for a “seated” clientele.

What can you have in common with movie glitterati Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, and Meryl Streep or hunks Mark Wahlberg and David Bowie? You, too, can look great in clothes designed by Izzy Camilleri — even from a seated position.

Camilleri, a Toronto-based designer, understands that everyone wants clothing that is professional, sophisticated, and sometimes sexy yet also totally wearable. In 2009, she debuted the IZ Adaptive Collection for people with disabilities. Available online at www.izadaptive.com, the Izzy Camilleri Adaptive Clothing line features a multitude of fashionable day and evening pieces. Shoppers in Toronto can browse her collection in an accessible retail space where wheelchair users can maneuver freely. The dressing room in the Toronto showroom is equipped to handle chair movement, and the staff is well versed in approaching wheelchair users to discuss modifications that may be needed to fit items more specifically to individual customers.

How IZ Adaptive evolved

Camilleri started her own design collection right after her graduating from Ontario’s Fashion Technique and Design Programme at Sheridan College in 1983. After ten years, she began providing custom design for the Canadian film and television industry. Her work brought her into the United States as a stylist on feature films, television, commercials, and music videos.

A friend familiar with her work asked her to design and make a shearling cape for Barbara Turnbull, a journalist who has been a paraplegic since her youth. Camilleri says, “It was then that I first became aware that there was a whole group of women who didn’t have access to the kind of clothing I made.” Through her connection to Turnbull, Camilleri learned about issues that people who use a chair have with clothing — putting items on and off, finding clothes that look good from a seated position but do not interfere with wheelchair mechanics, and fitting into fashionable choices that are suitable for the workplace.

Examples of adaptive clothing

Designing clothing for Turnbull set a whole design revolution in motion for Camilleri. If one wheelchair user was grateful for custom-fitted clothing, what about the rest of the seated community?

“Barbara held a focus group of women in wheelchairs, and I learned about issues that I had not even suspected!” Camilleri relates. “There were so many distinct needs that at first I did not think I could create a dress line that solved all of the issues that each person had expressed.” While continuing to design for Turnbull, Camilleri also began making custom clothing for another woman in a wheelchair. As a result of that experience, she says, “I began to see that there are ‘common threads’ in the design needs of all of these people who use wheelchairs.” So Camilleri put her talents to work creating an entire line, complete with skirts, tops, coats, jeans, pants, and robes — along with thoughtful, practical accessories.

What makes her clothing unique

One of the several issues Camilleri considers as part of her design strategy is how each feature contributes to the ease of getting dressed. Items like zippers can pose a real challenge to people with limited mobility, especially if they do not have helpers to dress them. Strategic zipper placement thus became a trademark of Camilleri’s adaptive designs. Easier fasteners, such as hidden Velcro strips or magnetic buttons, became another.

examples of adaptive clothing

Many wheelchair users struggle to get into and out of coats, especially in public places without familiar helpers around. “Capes seem easier but they have their own issues and are not always the most attractive option,” says Camilleri. “For power chair users, some capes can interfere with the motor box.” Thanks to the information gained from the focus group and from her continual observation and research, Camilleri solves these issues with many different coat styles. For paraplegic wheelchair users, she offers coats cut in an L shape on each side, short in the back so as not to bunch up but with long front panels to keep the legs warm. For those with limited arm mobility, she offers coats with a “high back”—only a few inches of fabric and a short zipper—that allow helpers or even strangers to easily put on each of two warm side-front panels, button up the front, and then zip the pieces together behind neck and shoulders.

The capes Camilleri does design include considerate touches such as zippers at the side for ease of movement or even Velcro fasteners so the cape can be draped on easily but look like a dress coat. She also offers “arm socks” that match her short capes for added warmth. These accessories look like sweater sleeves but pull on and off like long, handless gloves.
The arm socks are just one type of innovative accessory Camilleri has made for wheelchair users. Those who wheel themselves in rainy or snowy conditions know how dirty sleeves can get. Camilleri realized that people needed protection for clothing sleeves, but in a form that would not obstruct a chair’s mechanical controls or get caught in the wheels. Camilleri drew inspiration from observing factory workers who dealt with machinery and began designing fashionable protectors that can keep sleeves from wrist to elbow clean and free from rips and tears.

The Izzy Camilleri Adaptive Clothing website features several videos that demonstrate the ease-of-use features Camilleri has built into her fashions. The videos can help wheelchair users visualize how Camilleri’s clothing could fit their specific needs.

Conquering a new fashion frontier

Recognizing how few fashion choices exist that are tailored to the needs of wheelchair users, Camilleri notes, “The formula for taking my patterns and adapting them to a seated frame was something I had to develop from scratch.” The client who started it all, Barbara Turnbull, states that ever since the adaptive clothing collection came online in 2009, “Izzy has been inundated with an unexpected flood of inquiries, orders, and appeals from the disabled community, and others, to extend her collection to include designs for men and children and increase retail availability. Every week brings thousands of hits on her website from around the world.” The website now also features coats, pants, tops, and even robes for men in wheelchairs.

Carolyn Pioro, one of IZ Adaptive’s customers, says in a web testimonial, “I embrace the freedom to define myself through my actions and my appearance. Thanks to the innovative IZ clothing line, there now exist [fashion] options that were never available to me before.”

Camilleri counts herself fortunate to have been featured in a number of publications, magazines and newspapers, but mentions that she would appreciate even more opportunities to share her line of clothing with the vast wheelchair-user community. On occasion, groups that specialize in adaptive equipment for people with disabilities include a link to her website on theirs. Several clients also find out about her clothing line through coverage in publications such as the Toronto Star or through Camilleri’s supporters at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

T-shirts based on British artist Sophie Morgan's artSophie Morgan, a British artist, disability rights activist, and wheelchair user, is a spokesperson for IZ Adaptive Clothing. Creator of the IMperfect campaign, Morgan also models and has contributed one of her art pieces for the first T-shirt available at the IZ Adaptive online store. Proceeds from every t-shirt sale go to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

Accolades

Camilleri applies to her adaptive collection the same couture-like workmanship that has secured her a position as one of Canada’s preeminent designers. “Fashion and feedback determine what I produce in all of my lines each season,” she relates. “For IZ adaptive, I like to put together a fashion trend report and see how it applies so that my customers can make choices along with the fashion world. Simple fabric and or color changes can keep [wheelchair users] up-to-date” with anyone else who enjoys the latest fashions. However, Camilleri also features many classic designs that promise to stay in style for a long time. Her innovations in mainstream designs earned her the title of Designer of the Year in 2006.

Camilleri’s dream is to provide even more products, both online and through more retail outlets. “I’d love to have a store in New York, someday,” she says. Camilleri would also like to broaden her line. “Perhaps I could even match up with a shoe manufacturer in the future and offer shoes to people with disabilities,” she muses. Still, with the pieces Camilleri designs already, wheelchair users can look and feel like movie stars from head to toe.

To learn more about Izzy Camilleri’s other work view her website at:www.izzycamilleri.com.

www.izadaptive.com
info@izadaptive.com
416.860.0783
Toll Free: 1-866-831-0451
2955B Dundas Street West, Toronto, ON, M6P 1Z2

Testimonials

My name is Patti VanLandschoot and I have multiple sclerosis. I was extremely excited when I discovered Izzy and her adaptable clothing line. I immediately contacted her to see what she could do for me; I discovered the possibilities were endless and I couldn’t believe it that somebody had finally thought about all the trials and tribulations that a disabled person goes through trying to find proper fitted clothing.

Izzy has made me pants and a shirt but my favorite item she has made me so far is my winter coat. I now do not mind going out in my wheelchair in the winter. She has thought of all the little things required to make it extremely easy to get dressed, plus the clothing line is very stylish. Anyone who needs assistance with dressing, etc. needs to contact Izzy to make their life easier; I know she’s helped me!
— Patti VanLandschoot

I worked in the business world prior to my injury, [and] I dressed fashionably. I struggled to find suitable clothing for outings after my injury until I read an article in the Toronto Sun introducing Izzy Camilleri as a clothing designer for disabled people! I contacted Izzy and she has made me accessible pants, shirts, and jackets to suit my disability!
—Val Cleroux

 

Edited by Mary-Louise Piner.

JJ’s List

JJs list patch that reads "Proud to Be a Disability-Aware Business on JJs list. Rate our disability awareness on www.jjslist.comLooking to develop job and/or advocacy skills? Planning an outing? Need to go shopping? If you live in the Chicago area, there’s a web-based review site that can help you find disability-friendly businesses that suit your needs.

In recent years, sites like Yelp and Angie’s List have helped consumers around the globe find local businesses that have been vetted by other members of the online community. However, these sites often fail to offer praise and complaints from a disability perspective. In response to this need, Chicago-area filmmaker and parent JJ Hanley established jjslist.com, a 501(C)3 non-profit Web resource that offers people a place to share information about the disability awareness of any business any size, any location, and anytime. You can review and read about which localities score points for being welcoming to people with disabilities — and which do not. Although listings are currently concentrated in the Chicago area, the site’s presence is growing to include other locations throughout the country. Says Hanley, “Just through word of mouth, reviews have come in from 22 different states since jjslist.com launched two years ago.” One such example is DeafTax.com, a national tax preparation company headquartered in Maryland that found the site on its own and has become a supporting business.

Like the broader-based Yelp.com, jjslist.com not only offers a place for consumers to post reviews but also provides a venue for businesses to promote their disability aware features to the disability marketplace. A restaurant that makes Braille or large-print menus available or a dentist who has experience taking care of patients with autism are just a few examples of the hundreds of business that have contributed profiles to the jjslist.com Disability Awareness Directory. Through tweets, blogs and Facebook postings, the cross-ability, volunteer jjslist.com staff encourages visitors to advance the cause of disability advocacy and work directly with businesses to help them become more disability friendly.

The List offers downloadable positive and negative visitor cards that customers can leave with businesses to let them know that they will be reviewed for the disability awareness of their service. “It’s a great way for the disability marketplace to let businesses know that consumers with disabilities will share their praise for disability-aware service and constructive criticism when expectations for disability-aware service haven’t been met,” Hanley says.

For first-time review writers, students with disabilities who are learning self-advocacy or those who need to break the review process into steps, there is a downloadable review worksheet. One version of the review worksheet contains pictures to help non-verbal reviewers make their opinions known. “Students who make supported visits to businesses in the community can complete the worksheet during the visit,” Hanley says. “When they return to the classroom, they can learn the technology step of posting the review on the Internet with the support of a teacher. It’s a great way for students with disabilities to build self-advocacy and technology skills.”

Ken DiVincenzo, a Chicago-area father of a teenager with Down syndrome, shares his experience taking son Scott to restaurants and allowing him to order for himself. “I am sensitive to the interactions that Scott has with the members of the community,” DiVincenzo relates. “Scott’s challenge is to speak slowly, clearly, and with enough volume to be heard and understood. There is a wide range of responses if he is not initially understood. Some order takers will look to me to repeat what he has said. Others will appear uncomfortable as they ask him to repeat himself. Some react impatiently. Some are patient, understanding, and clearly focused on him as he gives his order. I believe in rewarding establishments that ‘get it’ with return visits and by recommending them to friends.” The List offers DiVincenzo the opportunity to broaden that recommendation base to the whole Chicago-area disability community.

When a business joins the Disability Awareness Directory, jjslist.com sends it a counter display, window cling and other materials to help the business promote its disability awareness to the community and raise its profile with the disability consumer. The List recently provided more than 65 Chicago-area companies that had received positive reviews on jjslist.com with promotional materials. Many of those companies already had positive interactions with customers with disabilities, but simply did not know of a way to spread the word. “We help them do that with our sticker and publicity program,” Hanley relates.

DiVincenzo notes that while his son has yet to write a review himself, the family uses jjslist.com to read about the experiences of others. He hopes to show Scott how the website can be a way to self-advocate and thus to demonstrate that he “has as much right as the next guy to expect courteous and respectful service.”

The website, jjslist.com, supports the efforts of reviewers and encourages further consumer opinions through such promotions as Reviewer of the Week. Future incentives might include rewarding frequent reviewers with points or simply designating them as high ranking reviewers.

How the List Came to Be

JJ’s List founder JJ Hanley is known to many as the maker of the national PBS documentary Refrigerator Mothers, a multiple award-winning production that told the stories of a generation of mothers who were wrongly blamed by the medical establishment for supposedly causing autism in their children through frigid mothering. The film was inspired by her own experience as a mother who was blamed in 1996 for her son Tim’s autistic behaviors.

Hanley relates that “during the making of the film, I became more sharply aware of what happens to individuals with disabilities in the adult world after the supports of the education system fall away.” She notes that after schooling, students with disabilities often “simply … ‘fall off the cliff’ of social services.”

“Initially, I thought about a follow-up documentary on the subject of the ‘cliff’,” she says. “But I soon realized I could make more of an impact by creating something proactive that would let people with disabilities and those who care for them have a consumer voice.” The site, jjslist.com is the result of that thinking.

Hanley sought advice from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business to help develop an approach that would most benefit people with disabilities. She applied and was accepted as a social entrepreneur, the creator of a business with goals for the greater social good. She worked with students at Booth to create the business model. This led to the site’s current mission: “To bring people with disabilities and businesses together for the benefit of both.”

How the List Differs from Other Consumer Sites

The jjslist.com site differs from most consumer websites in its business model. The site is free to consumers to post reviews. For-profit businesses pay $94.99 per year to mark themselves as disability friendly. Non-profits pay $44.99 annually.

Like any community-driven review site, businesses register their profiles on jjslist.com, not to be guaranteed positive reviews, but because they are aware of the value of customers with disabilities. Sometimes, the act of signing up to be included in jjslist.com opens the door for more positive interactions between service providers and consumers with disabilities. For example, Pace Suburban Bus, a Chicago-area public transportation company, has often exchanged comments with reviewers regarding both negative and positive reviews. “Pace uses the site to communicate with customers in an open way and to resolve the issues that are important to people with disabilities and to provide useful information. It makes them that much more disability-aware in their service,” Hanley says.Hanley says, “We see this model as a win win—a listing is a way for a business to promote itself and to build its awareness by building a dialogue with consumers about disability-aware service. She adds, “Businesses are figuring out that they are not in sole control of their brand—that the on-line community helps to determine their brand, often through social media. Businesses who sign up with us are saying, ‘We want to be a part of the dialogue that determines our brand in the community, and we want to engage directly with the consumer with a disability as a part of our commitment to provide good service to all of our customers.’”

From Consumer Activism to Employment

Providing employment opportunities for people with disabilities, both within the community and on staff for the site, is another goal of jjslist.com. Says Hanley, “We feel that greater opportunity for employment is a natural outgrowth of improved customer service.” The theory is that when a business’s customer base is full of people with disabilities, the employer will be more inclined to hire staff that mirrors those customers.

Hanley says that the volunteer-operated website is already serving as a job readiness training ground for people with disabilities. “We are training individuals with disabilities in communications and Internet skills that are essential for employment in today’s digital world,” Hanley says. “Every time someone posts a review or lists a business, there is an individual with a disability building website management skills by making sure the listing is properly posted. We hope that when grants come through we’ll be able to hire and become a become a model employer of people with disabilities.”

The List presently offers unpaid internships for high school and college students with disabilities to provide training in social media and self-advocacy skills. Hanley hopes to receive enough grant money to pay interns as well.

The JJ’s List “Disability Awareness Players” offer disability awareness training for companies and business associations. Recent clients have ranged from a local YMCA to the Chicago office of the global electronics giant Siemens Corporation. Training provided by the Disability Awareness Players takes the form of an engaging role play experience. “For example, in one skit, we might create a scene where an employee is trying to communicate with someone whose speech is hard to understand,” Hanley says. The Players would demonstrate how to handle such a situation in a confident way by teaching that it’s okay to ask a person to repeat him or herself. “We deliver a serious message in a lighthearted way so that confidence in interacting with disability grows and becomes natural.” Although this approach may seem awkward at first, Hanley relates that “audience members quickly learn that there is no shame on either side in offering or asking for assistance to make communications flow more easily and meet the needs of customer and business.”

Growth and the Future

Hanley has already seen promising growth on jjslist.com, the site having already achieved almost 3000 unique monthly visitors on its present shoestring budget and volunteer energy. The site has more than 1,100 followers on Twitter and over 500 “likes” on Facebook, and both numbers are increasing as word spreads and interest in the site grows.

To help support operations, the organization sponsors an annual “Bridge Builder’s Benefit.” This year’s event will be held on October 13 and will honor several local businesses for their disability awareness during the previous year.

Hanley continues to look for expansion opportunities. “Although reviews can be posted about any business, anywhere, our current capacity limits our marketing efforts to Chicagoland,” she says. “We hope to secure philanthropic investment that will allow us to meet the needs of consumers with disabilities and to help more businesses across the nation reach the disability marketplace. It’s a win-win for people with disabilities, businesses and the community and we are excited and committed to making it happen.”

 

Edited by Mary-Louise Piner.

Arthur & Friends Greenhouse: A Garden that Delights

New Jersey First Lady Mary Pat Christie and daughter Sarah meet Arthur Blanchard

New Jersey First Lady Mary Pat Christie and daughter Sarah meet Arthur Blanchard, the inspiration for Arthur & Friends, the program started by New Jersey Hero Wendie Blanchard.
Photo credit: Arthur & Friends

In backyards across the country, home gardeners will soon delight in a rich harvest of fruits, flowers, and vegetables. But in the Arthur & Friends Greenhouse Project, the yield is much richer: worthwhile jobs for people with disabilities. What began as an ambitious idea four years ago for Wendie Blanchard has become a successful growing social entrepreneurship, employing several people with disabilities and training many more.

Genesis of the Program

Blanchard’s nephew, Arthur Blanchard, inspired Wendie to establish the Greenhouse Project. A young adult with Down Syndrome, Arthur was unsatisfied with his sheltered-workshop job of filling bags with dog treats. Wendie’s background in working with teens with disabilities in Sussex County, New Jersey gave her additional insight into the larger problem of employment satisfaction needs for people with disabilities. “The problem as I saw it was this,” says Wendie. “Meaningful jobs [needed to be created] in an industry…where sales would be constant even in a time of recession. Since people always need food, I thought about [farming] as the answer.”

Her ambitious aims also included providing work in a valuable sector that produced delicious locally grown produce using environmentally friendly methods. Tackling all this via vegetable production created its own set of issues. For example, Wendie states, “I didn’t want to create jobs that were seasonal. I wanted steady year-round employment for my target worker group—people with disabilities.” Her background working in vocational education made clear to her how limited the employment options often are for people with disabilities when they leave the school system and became adults.

After setting goals for Arthur & Friends came the practical questions: Where, how and what should we grow? How can we train employees with disabilities to plant, harvest and sell the vegetables? How would the produce reach the market? How would the project cope with weather issues in New Jersey to achieve year-round farming?

Michele in the garden

Michele, who suffered a stroke and is a two-year veteran of the program, delights in giving tours of the 1/4 acre greenhouse.
Photo credit: Arthur & Friends

Blanchard sought the help of two of the country’s premier agricultural schools: Cornell University and Ohio State. Their studies recommended greenhouse growing and the use of hydroponics, a system of growing plants in water rather than soil. Their agricultural experts pointed out that the costs for hydroponic growing would be at least fifty percent less than for soil-based farming. In addition, because hydroponic plants are grown on tables, people in wheelchairs could more easily plant and harvest crops as well as work in sales.

A donated greenhouse, funds raised through donations and finances for the development staff from New-Jersey–based community action organization, NORWESCAP, gave the program its start in 2007. NORWESCAP, the Northwest New Jersey Community Action Program, in keeping with its mission to “fight poverty, create opportunities, and change lives,” gave Arthur & Friends just under $50,000. The total cost to set up the initial 1,500 square-foot growing space was around $90,000. About half of the money was spent on installing the hydroponic growing tables.

Additional goals

Arthur & Friends is now a three-greenhouse enterprise that sells vegetables and herbs to both wholesale and retail markets. The greenhouses seek to leave a small ecological footprint while they complete their primary missions of job training and local food production.

Hydroponic farming as achieved by Arthur & Friends involves a highly controlled environment in which nutrient-rich water is recycled, much equipment is made from recycled materials and heating comes from the sun and small gas heaters. As a further environmentally-friendly measure, the program is considering switching to solar heat. Finally, the group demonstrates a commitment to supporting American labor by purchasing tables made in America of American resources.

The project’s work also underscores a connection to the community at large. Blanchard notes, “We grow a variety of items, including some specialty items for restaurants, but we do not want to be elitist. We feel strongly our commitment to feed the poor.” The group accomplishes these two aims by growing some high-end items, including custom microgreens and other unique specialty greens, to be sold to high-end restaurants. This enables Arthur & Friends to keep the prices of traditional items like romaine lettuce, basil and Swiss chard affordable to the general public.

Early progress

After its initial year with just one greenhouse, Arthur & Friends moved to a new site at the New Jersey State Fairgrounds in Sussex County, a venue with more space, more opportunity for trainees to interact with customers, and more positive public exposure for the program. Blanchard notes that the New Jersey Fairground location provides a great place not only for the public to purchase their food but also to find out how the greenhouse hydroponics work — and to discover the employment potential of people with disabilities.

By October 2008 the initial greenhouse was selling produce successfully, had 14 “Friends,” or project participants, in training and was waiting to train 48 more on a waiting list. In 2009 the project began to expand with the generosity of a $500,000 grant from the Kessler foundation. By 2010 the Sussex greenhouse had 31 trainees, three fulltime staff members and a waiting list of 90. That same year, the project entered its first private enterprise partnership, with local Hackettstown florist Greenway Flowers. Such collaborations open the door for trainees to work for employers other than Arthur’s. Later in 2010, Arthur & Friends partnered with Garden State Urban Farms in Essex County but serving ex-offenders as the target employment population.

Training

“Friends” work between 8 and 20 hours a week. The “Friends” receive approximately 200 hours of non-paid training initially. After they have successfully completed the first two training modules, they are assisted in finding employment in the community. Those who are hired by Arthur and Friends are paid an hourly pay rate that ranges from $7.45 to $13 an hour, depending on responsibilities, but the very act of growing plants is rewarding for many participants. Trainees learn not only all aspects of hydroponic agriculture but also general workplace skills such as invoicing, shipping, ordering, conducting online sales and interacting with customers. Friends even give tours of the facility, during which visitors can learn about hydroponics while also seeing people with disabilities as experts on a fun and fascinating subject.

Program participants take on all aspects of selling, from contracting with restaurants to interacting with customers at the greenhouses. As an online store becomes available in the near future, Friends will work on that endeavor as well.

Key to the training regimen of each Friend is the daily planning session, during which group and individual goals are set. The primary components of Arthur & Friends training are hydroponic techniques, produce marketing and selling, and strategies for finding work in the agricultural sector.

Because disability situations tend to be highly individualized, training methods are often customized as well. For example, one man with almost complete mobility disability learned to use his mouth to manipulate chopsticks to plant seeds. Another uses a pizza cutter to separate lettuce plants into seeded rows.

Blanchard notes that watching the seeds grow and change is like watching the Friends grow and change: the work plants the seed of self-confidence in them. Several program graduates have already been placed in satisfying jobs, and more employers are showing interest. Some are achieving employment outside of the agricultural sector using the general skills they learned in the program. The florist partnership also opened a door into private-sector employment.
According to a Kessler Foundation newsletter, more than 70 people with disabilities have learned valuable business and social skills at Arthur & Friends. While most program graduates work for local businesses or as trainers and supervisors at Arthur & Friends, several have branched out. Two have enrolled at Sussex Community College—one woman, disabled by a stroke at age 22, is studying marketing in order to better promote the message of Arthur & Friends; another, with physical disabilities and partial deafness, plans to teach sign language. “Both were largely confined to their homes before the program,” Blanchard said. “Now,” she says proudly, “with their new-found confidence and skills, they are ready to take on the world!”

Future

The Kessler Foundation newsletter also reports that Arthur & Friends recently received a “Local Heroes” award from Edible Jersey magazine for promoting locally grown produce and is featured in a new documentary on opportunities in green businesses for people with disabilities. In February 2010 the program received an award from NJ BIZ Magazine, naming Arthur & Friends the most “innovative” business, in the non-profit category. Ever since the program was first publicized in its early days on the radio and in the New York Times, interest in creating similar programs has mushroomed.

Where someone else might see a simple school program or greenhouse, Blanchard sees an opportunity for some version of the Arthur & Friends Greenhouse concept to take root. Blanchard estimates that there are 184 greenhouses in the five-county area of northwestern New Jersey, which translates into a lot of potential for success. Rutgers University has already purchased a module to attempt to develop a similar project on campus. Over 34 states, a variety of foreign countries, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a number of other Federal, State and local governmental entities have expressed interest in creating similar programs to promote better health, offer locally grown vegetables and make job opportunities for workers with disabilities and other disenfranchised groups.

Blanchard’s dream is to have an Arthur & Friends–type program in place in every community, with schoolchildren literally eating the fruits of their labors and people with disabilities working productively to selling healthy food options in the neighboring areas. She says, “We do not yet have a greenhouse in any school, but it is part of the dream for the future. The only disability is attitude.”

How do Arthur & Friends leaders sustain such passion for the program? Blanchard says, “We bring [our workers with disabilities] out of the shadows. They come to work with the public. They know that they are making a…contribution, that they have something of value to share and it gives them confidence.” That harvest is worth reaping year-round.

Edited by Mary-Louise Piner.

Clarks: Commitment to Quality

By Joan Leotta

Shoes. Some love them, obsess about them, spend small fortunes collecting and wearing them. Others just find them a practical necessity. But some, like the executives at Clarks Companies, N.A., use their passion for shoes not just to share quality footwear with the world but also to provide employment opportunities for people with disabilities in the communities where they operate.

Bob Miller (Sr VP of Clarks Companies Retail), Ryan Toomey (current First Step Intern and Triangle Client), and Henry Winkelman Photo credit: Clarks

Bob Miller (Sr VP of Clarks Companies Retail), Ryan Toomey (current First Step Intern and Triangle Client), and Henry Winkelman
Photo credit: Clarks

Jim Salzano, Interim President of Clarks, says, “We have found that capabilities, passion and commitment to work are not defined by what some call ‘disabilities.’” For Clarks, this mission of “standing tall” involves recognizing “a responsibility to help in the communities in which we live and work… [as] an important part of the way we do business.”

The Power of Triangle

Clarks’ efforts to employ people with disabilities stem from the company’s relationship with the Massachusetts-based employment advocacy group Triangle, Inc. Serving more than 3,000 people with disabilities from 170 communities throughout Southern New England, Triangle offers an award-winning School-to-Career program, career placement services and an array of life development services for youth and adults with disabilities.

“Most of the people served come to Triangle for training to establish a career or live a more independent and meaningful life in their own community,” says Triangle CEO Michael A. Rodrigues. Providing this type of opportunity is where Clarks comes in.

In 1997 Bob Infantino, then Clarks President, joined Triangle’s Board of Directors. Rodrigues notes that Infantino “toured our Malden headquarters and was amazed by the opportunities for career and personal development that Triangle offered.” Since that time many Clarks executives, including the currently serving, Interim President Jim Salzano and Senior Vice President for Retail Bob Miller, have served on Triangle’s Board and worked with the organization to develop creative strategies for helping Triangle’s target populations enter the workforce. [Read more…]