As a nonprofit at the forefront of employment inclusion since 1965, Northwest Center is always proud to be part of the Annual Diversity Employment Day Career Fair & Roundtables. This year, we were even more proud: the 20th annual fair honored our Director of Talent Strategy and Partnerships Rachel Cupples, as well as the Northwest Center Talent Acquisition Group, with the Diversity Spirit Achievement Award.

“This award is presented to those individuals, corporations, and government officials that have actively supported diversity in an outstanding way,” said Neal Morrison, Director of Diversity Recruiter’s Network.org. “It’s my pleasure to recognize Northwest Center for diversity and inclusion in their recruitment, hiring, and onboarding processes.”

Northwest Center’s Talent Acquisition Group is itself a diverse team of people where “inclusion and innovation go hand in hand,” Cupples says. “We find ways to leverage community and disability partnerships and reach out to diverse populations.

“Disability does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, or age,” she continues. “Neither does our recruitment process.”

Want to join the inclusion revolution with a job at Northwest Center? Visit our careers page now.

​Northwest Center unlocks the potential of people of all abilities, and now some of our Employment Services clients are discovering even more talents: they’re teaming up with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and composer Charles Corey to create an orchestral piece that will debut in June at the symphony’s popular Beethoven Festival.  
 
Beethoven Festival also features community collaborations with a local children’s chorus and Native American tribes. The goal of the Northwest Center partnership is to demonstrate what people with disabilities can do and to promote inclusion at in the arts, business, and the greater community. It’s a perfect fit with a celebration of Ludwig van Beethoven, who composed some of his most famous music after he became deaf at age 26. 
 
Northwest Center clients have worked on musical themes with the symphony since late summer through a series of workshops that ranged from making art playing musical instruments to outings to the Woodland Park Zoo and the Seattle Art Museum.  
 
Not only is this collaboration about making music, it’s about making friends: Best Buddies of Washington has connected symphony employees with NWC clients for friendships that will last far beyond June. 

Join Northwest Center June 19 and 21, 2020 at the Seattle Symphony to hear the world premiere, presented in concert with Beethoven’s legendary 4th and 5th symphonies. ​

​Our founding mothers understood how to harness the power of government to make the world more inclusive of people of all abilities. We’re pleased to connect with a growing roster of state, regional, and national legislators who, like us, understand that until all of us are allowed to engage and contribute, none of us will reach our full potential. 
 
Last April, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan chose one of our Early Learning Centers, Northwest Center Kids at Chinook, to sign the Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise (FEPP) Levy into law.  Including a first-ever exemption for Seattle’s most vulnerable taxpayers, FEPP promises seven years of publicly funded investments to increase access to and funding for education for people of all ages and abilities throughout Puget Sound.  
 
In May, First Lady Trudi Inslee visited Puget Sound Laundry Services (PSLS), one of Northwest Center’s owned businesses. Operations Manager Ofelia Almanza led First Lady Inslee on a tour of the facility. Almanza told the story of the facility with pride: For more than 25 years, PSLS has provided superior quality laundry services and employed people of all abilities. Today, more than 60 percent of the staff at the facility has some form of disability. Following the tour, the First Lady talked with Northwest Center President & CEO Gene Boes, staff, and parents about making education and workforces more inclusive for people with disabilities. 
 
In June, we were proud to host King County Executive Dow Constantine at Northwest Center headquarters for a discussion with our Kids team about our IMPACT™ program, part of the Child Care Health Consultation services funded by Best Starts for Kids, which funds programs for children across King County. Northwest Center Kids launched IMPACT in late 2018 to train regional preschool staffs how to welcome and educate children of all abilities. A little over one year into the program, IMPACT  already surpassed a three-year goal of reaching 6,000 kids.  
 
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal rounded out the year with a November visit to Northwest Center Kids at Chinook for a discussion on education and employment opportunities for people with disabilities. After a brief chat with students, staff, and clients, Congresswoman Jayapal met with Katrina Caron, Director of Early Learning, and President & CEO Gene Boes. 
 
With each visit, meeting, and event, it’s clear that many of our local, state, and federal officials support Northwest Center’s mission to promote the growth, development, and independence of people with disabilities through programs of therapy, education, and work opportunity. We know how much there is to be done—here’s to making more connections in 2020. 

It’s an audacious goal, and by its very definition is not something we’re likely to achieve in 2020, or on our 60th anniversary, or even by our 75th. But it is the ultimate, fixed North that we work toward at Northwest Center, no matter what moves or changes around us.  
 
We are making great strides in the journey. Our Kids team launched the IMPACT™ program in 2018 with the goal of making inclusive early learning available to 6,000 more kids in King County in three years. They reached that goal before the program was even a year old, and are now well on their way to doubling that number as we progress into 2020.
 
Our Early Intervention, Early Learning, and Employment Services teams once again served a record number of kids and adults with disabilities in the past year. And with new, innovative approaches in place like the restructuring of our Employment Services into a scalable, geography-based “pod” structure, we’re poised to make inclusion part of even more workplaces and lives across the country in the coming years.
 
Our North goes hand-in-hand with the Strategic Plan we adopted two years ago. We’re continuing to build OneNWC by enhancing our workplace culture with more professional development opportunities, more sharing of our success stories, and more opportunities to connect across divisions.
 
Every step we take is designed to achieve significant, ongoing growth as an organization while ensuring a positive experience for our employees and our customers. Every step we take is toward our North. Because until all of us are included, none of us reach our potential. 
 
Onward & Upward,
Gene Boes
​President and CEO

Northwest Center’s Donation Pickup Service The Big Blue Truck rolls out a Bold New Look

The Big Blue Truck has been driving change since 1967, picking up your donated clothing and household items to help fund Northwest Center’s services for people with disabilities. Now we’re unveiling a change of our own! We’re pleased to introduce a truck fleet with a fresh new look, now hitting the road across Washington state.

Our new look includes the new colors of Northwest Center’s refreshed brand look and represents our services from birth to career. Pictured is a cross-section of the children and adults with and without disabilities who benefit from our programs of inclusion from Early Intervention to Early Education to Employment Services.

The photo is shown against vibrant ripples that mirror the ripples in the icon of our updated logo. The bright blue conveys the positive energy created when people of all abilities learn and work together, while the ripples signify the lasting impact inclusion makes on the world. It all comes together against the classic blue color that has identified The Big Blue Truck since 1967.

You’ll be sure to spot The Big Blue Truck around your community soon, but there’s one way to be sure you’ll see it: schedule a pickup today! Simply enter your ZIP code at BigBlueTruck.org to get The Big Blue Truck rolling to you. When you do, you’ll be helping fund vital Northwest Center services AND helping us keep more than 17 million pounds of recyclable goods out of landfills every year!

Schedule your donation pickup today at BigBlueTruck.org.

When you give to The Big Blue Truck™, you’re not only keeping clothing and household goods out of landfills; you’re making employment possible for people of all abilities. Northwest Center and Value Village teamed up to give job seekers with disabilities even more interview confidence: Styled for Success, personal styling at Value Village. Jesse found the perfect interview clothing during Styled for Success, and then the perfect job in customer service at Sky Nursery.

“The next day, I started working,” says Jesse. “It's a great fit. I really enjoy it.”

Thank you for making it possible for great employees like Jesse to find jobs they love.

Watch Jesse in action in this short video below. 

​If you need to know how things work at the Amazon sortation center in Kent, ask Angela. Since hiring on in 2016, she’s aced two intensive training programs to earn the designations of Problem Solver and Learning Ambassador.

“I like to problem solve,” Angela explains. “If it’s a broken package, you scan it into the computer and say what’s wrong with it, then you repackage it into a new box and put it back on the conveyor belt.”

As a Learning Ambassador, Angela helps new hires with everything from finding the break room to operating a pallet jack.
Angela’s success makes Northwest Center’s Employment Services team proud—but definitely not surprised. Because their commitment didn’t end once she was hired: every Northwest Center client receives job coaching and support for as long as needed.

“The best example was when she was required to learn the ‘water spider’ function (wrapping and printing labels for pallets),” says Senior Pod Manager Phil Keating. “She was scared and asked if she could skip that task. We helped her work through it, and now she is a trainer in that process!”

There were some tasks Angela learned before she was even hired, because she took part in a working interview at a sortation center mockup complete with aisles, products, a conveyor belt, and scanners. Employment Services built the mockup, housed at our Puget Sound Laundry Services building, in 2015.
​
Since then, NWC has placed and supported 212 employees at Amazon. Those employees boast impressive retention rates, high productivity, and a quality rating 37% higher than their coworkers. Learn more in this Seattle Times article on Northwest Center’s Amazon placement success.

Northwest Center’s Golden Hearts Luncheon welcomed more than 500 guests who generously donated $170,000 to Northwest Center’s services for kids and adults.

The event was hosted by KING-TV personality Chris Cashman and featured Shaquem Griffin, linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks, whose keynote address reminded the crowd why inclusion is so important: all his life, he’s accomplished things people told him he couldn’t do.

Griffin lost his hand at age 4 due to amniotic band syndrome. His family treated him just like anyone else, but other people were another story. Once at a Little League playoff game, a coach told him, “‘Football is not a one-handed sport.’ But I played that game. I got my first ever interception and took our team to the championship,” Griffin recalled.

Today, “There are people who say, ‘This guy’s an inspirational story, not a football player,’” Griffin said. “I don’t look at myself as a person with a handicap. I look at myself as a person who works his butt off to get the things he wants out of life.”

When you give to The Big Blue Truck™, you’re not only keeping clothing and household goods out of landfills; you’re making employment possible for people of all abilities.

Dani works at Value Village to sort hangers and return clothes from dressing rooms. With the help of an employment coach from Northwest Center, Dani has found success at Value Village. In fact, when you ask her what she likes best about her job, her answer is “Everything!”
​
See Dani in action in this short video—and thank you for making it possible for great employees like Dani to find jobs they love!

​​It was a golden day at the 2018 Golden Hearts Luncheon at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Seattle, where attendees gave from their hearts and raised more than $130,000 to support Northwest Center’s school-to-employment Transition Services. Now, more students with disabilities will have the support they need to find the perfect job. ​

As 2018 is quickly comes to a close and we prepare to welcome 2019, I want to THANK YOU for supporting Northwest Center and for helping make our world a more inclusive one! 
 
This past year, you’ve helped us launch our IMPACT™ (Inclusion Mentorship Program for increasing Access in Childcare Team) and EPIC (Expanding Play, Interaction and Communication) services for children on the Autism spectrum and paved the way for our Employment Services team to expand our employer ecosystem to over 1,000 organizations across the state. We’ve also deepened our partnerships with school districts and are successfully working our way “upstream” and reaching students sooner than their final year in school.

Spread holiday cheer by joining with The Big Blue Truck™ and Northwest Center Kids to purchase clothes, toys and other gifts for families in need. We’re making the holidays brighter for many of our families this year by providing more than 400 gifts. Please visit our registry to make a purchase. 

“I’m not a hero and I’m not brave, I just got a chance to do what I love, and I did my best,” says Lauren Potter, best known as cheerleader Becky Jackson on the hit TV show Glee.
 
Career success like Potter’s is what Northwest Center’s 2018 Golden Hearts Luncheon is all about. This year’s event will raise funds for Transition Services, so more students with disabilities can find rewarding employment. As keynote speaker, Potter will share how she achieved her career goals.
 
“I am incredibly honored to speak to the people at Northwest Center,” Potter says. “I think the work being done by Northwest Center supports people to their fullest ability. It lets everybody know that we should be together, not separate. It helps give people a head start in life and makes them stronger. Without places like Northwest Center, inclusion is impossible!”

In the surgical room at Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Services (SCRAPS), everyone works quietly and efficiently. The vet is finishing up a minor surgical procedure on a rescued dog. Mercie, her assistant, monitors the animal’s heart rate and prepares for his transfer back to his crate. When the surgery is complete, Mercie joins another assistant to prep the next animal, carefully inserting a breathing tube and shaving patches of fur.
 
This is Mercie beginning to fulfill her lifelong dream—one that teachers, peers, and even her father once thought was out of reach.

​A new and innovative radio program airing on Spokane’s KXLY FM/AM is broadcast from Northwest Center’s Employment Services offices in Spokane. Breaking Through is a 30-minute show produced by Don Gillespie, a community employment services manager with more than 30 years of broadcasting experience. Gillespie uses the program to share stories that promote equal opportunities for children and adults with disabilities.

​It was an epic day at the 7th Annual Northwest Center Golf Classic as more than 120 players competed in rounds of championship golf at The Golf Club at Newcastle. Golfers got out their putters on the greens and also their wallets to give green: they raised $85,000 to launch EPIC (Expanding Play, Interaction and Communication), a new Northwest Center Kids initiative that will provide early and ongoing support to families of children with autism.
 
Event host Bill Krueger, former Seattle Mariners ace and Northwest Center’s strategic relationship officer, competed with some of his professional athletic pals including former Seahawks defensive end Alonzo Mitz, former Mariners pitcher Erik Hanson, Charlie Furbush, former Mariner and current MLB player, and former Mariners centerfielder Brian Hunter.

​In three days of competing in the Special Olympics USA Games in Seattle, local soccer squad Team Spirit scored 17 goals and managed to make it into the semifinals, netting a bronze medal.
 
Head coach Mike Quinn, Northwest Center’s VP of business development, gave all the credit to his players, who managed to defeat Hawaii and South Carolina in the early rounds. In the semis, Team Spirit tied the Washington Thunder 1-to-1 in the elimination round to secure the bronze. Washington Thunder went on to win gold and Maine took the silver.

​­Want to make a big difference for people in need this year during the holidays? Join Northwest Center’s 2018 holiday drive. Once again, we’ll fulfill the wish lists of families in need by collecting toys and clothes that The Big Blue Truck™, Northwest Center Kids, and our executive team will distribute for the holidays.

A clothing drive with Northwest Center's Big Blue Truck™ is a fun way for parents, teachers, and kids to clean out closets, recycle used clothing, get a tax deduction, and of course, benefit Northwest Center's services for people of all abilities.
​Get started today! 

​Saturday, August 11, 2018
10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Cromwell Park: 18030 Meridian Ave N Shoreline, WA 98133

Join us for a day of inclusive family fun!
 
- Free lunch
- Free painting
- Live music
- Games led by Special Olympics of Washington
- A special visit by a service llama
 
CONTACT INFO: 
Laura Kneedler: lkneedler@nwcenter.org 

​Northwest Center is pleased to welcome Michael Padilla as an intern writer and photographer. Michael has ataxic cerebral palsy, which is a muscle disability. He’s currently a sophomore at Bellevue College and upon graduation, he wants to become a sports reporter.
 
By Michael Padilla
​
The Washington Spirit, coached by Northwest Center’s own VP of business development Mike Quinn, battled South Carolina in an early round soccer match at the Special Olympics USA Games at Seattle University. The Washington Spirit controlled the pace of the game from start to finish and won by a final score of 7 to 1.