For nearly 60 years, Thorndale’s Handi-Crafters has been training individuals with diverse special needs to find employment. Many employers, however, are not aware that the organization, using a talented and empowered workforce, also offers businesses a socially responsible outsourcing alternative to meet their production, packaging, and distribution goals.

As one of the largest employment- and disability-focused nonprofit service programs in southeastern Pennsylvania, Handi-Crafters works predominantly with individuals with developmental and physical disabilities by providing vocational evaluations, training, and job placement. Individuals who are referred to Handi-Crafters have two objectives for a career path: They can opt to seek a job in the community with various employment partners, or they can choose to work alongside other special-needs individuals at the work center, which comprises 24,000 square feet of production space.

“Those two objectives go hand in hand,” said Lauren Rolland, National Sales Manager at Handi-Crafters, “because our ultimate goal is to get people out into the workforce.”

In her position, Rolland is tasked with making potential customers – from small entrepreneurs to large companies and corporations – aware of the capabilities of the work center, and how their production needs and deadlines can be met by skilled, dedicated, and empowered workers who are happy for the opportunity to be meaningfully employed.

“My role is to solicit local and national corporations to bring work into our work center,” she said. “Corporations can bring their jobs to us, and we use those jobs to employ our people, do job training, and basically enrich their lives. We have anywhere from 300 to 350 workers here every day, and they can handle a wide variety of projects, but a lot of people don’t know what we do.”

Individuals at the work center are able to perform assembly, packaging, and production tasks, including shrink wrapping, labeling, blister packaging, mailings, bagging, POD display assembly and fulfillment, gluing, and heat sealing. And although it already has a large inventory of equipment, Handi-Crafters will acquire new instruments if it is necessary to complete a project.

Examples of recent jobs include building displays, repackaging, and making variety packs for a major snack manufacturer; producing and shipping 15 different shoe care kits for a national shoe brand; electronic refurbishing for an international telecommunications company; and sub-assembly work for a manufacturer in West Chester through a multi-year contract. Notably, the work center receives consistent positive feedback from this manufacturer on the quality of those assembled parts, which are always inspected and tested.

Mariana Tarau, Director of Production at Handi-Crafters, is especially proud to enable the organization’s workers to increase their skills as they earn money on the job at the center.

“For all of them, this is meaningful work with a purpose, and we try to build their skills with every opportunity that we have,” she said. “We try to have them doing things that they haven’t done before, and we rotate them, so they all have an opportunity to change and to have the excitement of learning new things.”

All workers, whom Handi-Crafters lovingly refers to as “clients,” first go through vocational evaluations during their intake process, which involves a 10-day evaluation of their skills and abilities. Once someone’s capabilities and skill level are assessed, a plan is put together to enhance those capabilities. Workers are assigned to one of 17 workshops at the center, each staffed by a qualified, college-educated supervisor who goes over the product specifications and quality expectations of each project with each worker.

According to Tarau, each worker and supervisor share accountability on each job.

“The one who gives the instructions is accountable and the person who receives instructions is accountable to make sure they understand everything,” she said. “Our production goal is 100 percent quality on time. Everyone knows exactly what has to be done, and that it has to go out the door at a certain time.”

In addition to the production floor, there are two warehouses at the Thorndale campus, and three loading docks that service tractor trailers from all over the country, often on a daily basis.

Amy Rice, Handi-Crafters’ Executive Director, suggests that everyone in the business community should pay a visit to the organization’s work center to get an appreciation for the workers’ dedication, positive attitudes, and range of skills.

“They really need to see what we do,” she said. “It runs the gamut from folding paper to packaging to assembling parts for fans. Anything that requires a lot of hands, we do, and we do it well.”

Rice, of course, recognizes the challenge of keeping 300-350 people busy every day as part of Handi-Crafters’ mission to enable special-needs individuals to earn a living.

“We do good work at a good price,” she said, “and the community has been very generous to us, but we’re not here to make money. The goal is having the work for them to do and to let them make money.”

As Handi-Crafters approaches its seventh decade of providing job training and meaningful work to those with special needs, its hopes more businesses consider socially responsible outsourcing. Those businesses will in turn gain the satisfaction of knowing their contracts are being fulfilled on time and to specifications by people that many other companies would never consider hiring.

“When a company offers their work to Handi-Crafters, they’re not only giving people jobs, they’re changing their lives,” said Rolland. “They’re giving them a purpose in life.”

Click here to learn more about Handi-Crafters.

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