Центр реабилитации в Уиноне закрывает собственное производство ради трудоустройства клиентов

by GABRIEL HATHAWAY Winona’s occupational rehab center for people with special needs, the Winona ORC, is closing its in-house production center to focus on connecting clients with outside employers. Late last month, the rain pushed a carnival cookout celebrating the change inside the newly emptied production floor, where clients and staff shared a meal, enjoyed music, and tried their hand at various carnival games. “We've got a lot of good things coming up, and we want to celebrate that,” Winona ORC Executive Director David Bittner said. The Winona ORC was founded in 1973 and helps people with disabilities find job opportunities and training. The organization currently works with 115 individuals and offers services such as laundry, document shredding, and its production center, where clients do packing and assembly work for local companies such as Fastenal, Wincraft, Peerless Chain, Watkins, and more. The ORC has long held a 14(c) certificate, which allows employers to pay people with disabilities less than minimum wage, but Bittner said the ORC along with many similar organizations have been moving away from subminimum wage work and focusing on connecting clients directly to community jobs. In recent years, the state of Minnesota has also considered eliminating subminimum wages, and in 2024 the Biden administration proposed phasing out the 14(c) certificate, but the following summer, the Trump administration rejected the proposal. While the ORC’s packaging and assembly center is closing, it will still offer shredding and laundry services. Bittner said it is disappointing for clients to work several hours for subminimum wages in the production center and come away with very little money at the end of the day, and so he said it felt like a good idea to transition away from that and toward helping clients secure jobs in the community and get more involved in the community in other ways. “We want to help them integrate into the community, whether it's through fun activities that maybe you and I would do on Saturday or after work or whatever,” Bittner said. He added, “[It’s] also getting them employment at area businesses.” Bittner said the ORC has been working on this transition for a year, adding that the client service department was restructured to free up some staff to work with clients and connect them with their interests in the community. He added that staff have also been getting extra training through a grant. Winona ORC Director of Client Services Anne Merseth said that what really put the nail in the coffin for the production center was when the ORC’s 14(c) certificate wasn’t recertified. She said that without it, the center wasn’t financially feasible, especially since orders have been decreasing. She noted that the ORC will still offer its laundry and shredding services but because of limits on how much people on Medicaid can earn, clients will still be earning about the same amount of money, but they will be working fewer hours with increased hourly wages. To make up for the loss of the production center and fewer hours for clients to work, the ORC has developed a couple new programs to engage the clients in the community. One is SPARK, which stands for Skills, Participation, Access, Relationships, and Knowledge. SPARK gives ORC clients opportunities to interact with the community, such as by going to the library or the park. The other new program is called Step Forward and focuses on job readiness. This could include creating resumes, applying for jobs, or acquiring a driver’s license. “It's not just going in and doing a job, it's everything to do with getting ready for that,” Merseth said. “So what they'll do is they'll learn the different skills, and then they'll be in the community learning about that, observing it in a job and learning it from different [employers].” Merseth said the transition away from the production center toward community-based jobs has been difficult but necessary and that staff have been working with clients to find what they’re passionate about and supporting them through the hiring process. Bittner said the ORC is very blessed to have so many people and companies supportive of the ORC’s mission in the community. “We already work with, I think, close to 100 businesses in the area, and so it's been really, really nice to have such a strong support system for our individuals in the community,” Bittner said. “So, yeah, we've been putting in some legwork ahead of time, but the community is just fantastic.”