One of Northwest Center’s first students, Debra Walruff, with Naval officers on the day the center was dedicated. Our first facility was formerly owned by the U.S. Navy.

​Established in 1965, over the past 55 years Northwest Center has made considerable progress on the journey toward our North: a world where 100% of kids of all abilities have equitable access to education, and the employment rate for people with disabilities is the same as that of the general population.

In March 2020, the world changed dramatically, as did the enormity of our challenge to continue North. But we’re more steadfast than ever about achieving that goal.

It’s safe to say none of us could foresee the situation we’re all in right now. But the Northwest Center community has proven that in the face of incredibly difficult times, we come together.

Immediately after COVID-19 hit, OneNWC leaned in together and continued to deliver on our mission: our Kids and Employment Services teams pivoted to remote therapy, Zoom classroom sessions, and creative ways to keep clients’ job skills sharp. Meanwhile, the essential workers at our businesses stayed on the front lines providing critical cleaning, laundry, office management and staffing services to the companies and medical facilities we serve. Read more about how our teams rose to the challenge.

Our IMPACT team used teleconferencing to expand their trainings to hundreds more attendees in each session. As of this writing, they’ve reached an astounding 17,000 children since 2018--read the full story here.

Parents and supporters inundated our teachers, staff, and service providers with grateful letters, then spearheaded a spring campaign to help bridge the gap left by reductions in our commercial businesses. Other donors provided telecommunications devices for therapy so children didn’t miss a single milestone. Now we’re gearing up for a reimagined fundraising event as The Derby goes virtual (and free) but the fun remains. Join us for The Derby on October 23.

Of course, these times have been riddled with hardship—particularly for the people with disabilities we serve. For many of them, staying home from work means missing not only the sense of purpose a job can bring, but also a critical opportunity to connect with other people. As all of us followed stay-at-home mandates, something occurred to me: the isolation, job uncertainty, and monotony of our days all sounded a lot like what many people with disabilities face EVERY day. We wrote about this in a recent issue of the Seattle Times. That realization left us only more determined that North is—has to be—an achievable goal.

Join Northwest Center as we continue our journey North. Because until all of us are fully included, none of us will reach our potential.

​Onward and Upward,
 
Gene

For nearly a year, Northwest Center Employment Services clients have been collaborating with musicians from the Seattle Symphony to compose a new orchestral piece. Best Buddies of Washington also joined the partnership to connect NWC clients and symphony musicians in friendship. The piece Northwest Center and the Symphony have composed together, titled “Together, This Journey,” was set to debut at the Symphony’s Beethoven Festival in June. Unfortunately, COVID-19 put all live performances on hold. But that hasn’t stopped our crews from continuing to collaborate at a distance on music and fun.

During Washington state’s stay-at-home order, NWC and Symphony folks shared some of the music that was getting them through the quarantine—classical and non-classical alike. Click the links to enjoy some favorites from our teams (thanks to Erica Brody, Director, Mission Advancement for Best Buddies Washington for compiling):
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• QUARANTINE JAMS, favorites of Northwest Center Clients
• BEETHOVEN JAMS, favorite symphonies and concertos from the SSO

In June, “Together, This Journey” was the topic of a discussion with composer Charles Corey and Seattle Symphony principal oboe Mary Lynch as part of the Symphony’s Digital Beethoven Fest. Listen to the conversation here.

In July, Seattle newspaper The Stranger shared the group’s Message to the City that includes their wishes for the future and their thanks to our first responders. Watch the Northwest Center, Best Buddies, and Symphony message here.
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While we’re not yet sure when “Together, This Journey” will finally get the live performance it deserves, we’re grateful to our Northwest Center composers, the Seattle Symphony, and Best Buddies for giving all of us something to look forward to. 

Digital Beethoven Fest photo courtesy of Seattle Symphony.

Northwest Center celebrates 55 years of inclusion on September 14, 2020, and the U.S. recently celebrated 30 years of the ADA. Northwest Center founder Janet Taggart recently shared her thoughts on both in this video interview.

​We may have to stay socially distanced, but Northwest Center services can’t stop—kids with disabilities still need therapy to reach their milestones, preschoolers need interaction with classmates and teachers, adults with disabilities need to keep their work skills sharp, and the businesses we partner with need essential services. Here are some ways the Northwest Center community has been rising to the challenge of COVID-19.

Hang on to your hats! This year, for the first time ever, we’re off to the races at a social distance as Northwest Center’s Derby gala goes virtual! On Friday, October 23, our biggest fundraising event will be streamed live on YouTube from Fremont Studios—with plenty of audience interaction. And registration for this year’s event is FREE.

Chris Cashman of KING5 will take guests through a program filled with fun, entertainment, and philanthropic excitement, while nationally known fundraising auctioneer Fred Northup will do his part to inspire guests to beat last year’s $300,000 fundraising goal.

Though we won’t dine in person, guests can still do it up for Derby dinner with fresh-from-scratch, hand-delivered meals created by renowned chef and longtime Northwest Center supporter John Howie of restaurants Seastar, SPORT, John Howie Steak, Beardslee Public House, and distillery Wildwood Spirits Co.

Every year, the big Derby draw is our live and silent auctions, and this year is no different—except guests will bid virtually using their computer, tablet, or mobile phone. (It’s easy and we’ll show you how.)

Though The Derby is free to attend, you do need to register to attend, bid, or donate—so be sure to register now right here. And mark your calendars: our silent auction of jewelry, gourmet food, and handcrafted, one-of-a-kind items opens on Monday, October 19. 

We look forward to seeing you LIVE at the Derby on October 23. Click here to register for The Derby.

​When Northwest Center Kids launched the IMPACT™ program in 2018, they knew the need for inclusive early learning was great. It turns out, the response to the program was even greater.

Instead of opening another brick-and-mortar Early Learning center that might only be able to serve 80 children at a time, the Kids team wanted a way to reach the thousands of children across the state who were shut out of early learning—an estimated 22,000 children in King County alone. They designed IMPACT (short for “Inclusion Mentorship Program for increasing Access in Childcare Team”) to provide training so that other early learning centers can welcome children with disabilities or who may need extra support throughout the day for a health care need or a physical, developmental, behavioral, or social-emotional concern.
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The team set a goal to reach 6,000 children by the end of 2020. They reached that goal before IMPACT was even a year old. As of summer 2020, IMPACT has reached a whopping 17,000 children in King County, with many more school and facility trainings to come.

Overwhelmingly Positive Responses
“This amazingly designed program is what we childcare providers have been hoping for for years,” says one director who received IMPACT consultations and training, citing the support that both teachers and the school director received. “The quality of the work was the professional push we needed for a reluctant family to hear our suggestions. This was the best class our experienced staff EVER took. They are still taking about what they learned.”

Those thoughts have been echoed in overwhelmingly positive responses from organizations who received IMPACT training:

• 100% of early learning directors surveyed report they are more likely to enroll children with special healthcare needs or disabilities as a result of receiving IMPACT services.
• 91% of directors surveyed are more likely to keep a child with challenging behaviors enrolled as a result of receiving IMPACT services.

​Those results are even more impressive when you consider that the IMPACT team is a small but mighty multidisciplinary team of just seven people, and when you see just how many people they’ve reached from September 2018 through June 2020:

• 1,233 consultations
• 84 trainings
• 2,514 people trained
• And of course, children reached as a result of those trainings and consultations: 17,000  

And while the COVID-19 pandemic has altered how the IMPACT team delivers their trainings, it has actually increased their reach: thanks to teleconferencing, they’ve been able to host virtual training across King County, training 1,531 providers and counting since the pandemic began.

Schools Want to be Inclusive
“One of my favorite things is when teachers realize they already have many of the skills they need to do inclusion,” says IMPACT Inclusion Consultant Kristen McLeskey. “There’s a sense of excitement when they see a strategy being successful, and they start shifting their thinking from ‘Someone else is better qualified to care for this child’ and instead start to realize, ‘I can do this!’
 
“Schools already want to be inclusive,” she continues, “but sometimes teachers just aren’t sure how to get started or need additional strategies. By providing ongoing consultation, IMPACT goes with them on this journey and helps them adapt their practices to support children with all different needs and abilities.”
 
“One of my favorite moments was helping a teacher recognize how, despite challenges in her classroom, she was still practicing inclusion,” says IMPACT Inclusion Consultant Erica Yuen. “She wished more people could be patient, because children with challenging behaviors deserve the chance to stay and learn positive behaviors. I commended her for her inclusive mindset—challenging behaviors are often a reason to remove a child from school. The simple act of pointing out her commitment to inclusion was incredibly empowering for her.”
 
Because IMPACT is sponsored by Public Health – Seattle and King County, Best Starts for Kids of King County's Child Care Health Consultation grant, Northwest Center Kids is able to offer services free of charge to early learning programs that serve children aged birth to five years in King County.
 
“Childcare is an underfunded and undervalued industry, and I enjoy providing free services that are of value to providers, to support them in the very challenging work that they do,” says Elizabeth Carley, IMPACT Program Coordinator and Mental Health Consultant.
 
Of course, the most important benefit of IMPACT is the fact that more children are being welcomed and included in early learning across King County, despite their challenges.
 
“IMPACT consultants are a great resource for us, especially helping me to support our children with special needs,” says one childcare provider. “They encourage us and give all the tips to succeed. Now we can see the big results in each child’s life!” 

The moment the family walked through their front door, Northwest Center was there to help: the family signed up for Hospital-to-Home, Northwest Center’s Early Intervention program that supports families when a baby comes home from a long hospital stay.

“Immediately upon leaving the hospital, we started doing motor and feeding therapy with our speech-language pathologist Natalie Miller,” says Jackson’s dad Nathan. (Miller, who is also a Hospital-to-Home Clinical Supervisor, remains Jackson’s therapist to this day.)

“It would have been unbelievably difficult to not have that support,” Kamille says. “It’s so overwhelming to be hooking your child up to a machine to be fed. It was really important to have someone dedicated to infant feeding. Natalie had worked with kids with tubes, she'd done swallow studies before. It was not her first rodeo and it was definitely ours.”

“Without that support, I think we would have clogged up our doctor’s phone lines,” Nathan says. “Or we might have pushed Jackson a little bit too hard on trying oral feeding if we hadn't had experts helping us understand his limitations.”

“Your first year feeding and taking care of a child is vital to their wellbeing for the rest of their life,” Kamille says. “The most important part of our day was getting Jackson fed. Natalie would talk to us, give a second opinion of ‘That’s normal or not normal’ or, ‘Yes, you should talk to a doctor about that’ or, ‘Here’s some referrals and resources; let me connect you with this person that might give you some more guidance.’ It was a support system.”

Part of the Family
Jackson, who turns 3 in November, has since reached some major milestones.

“We’ve been with Early Intervention services from the get-go. On top of that, Jackson started going to Northwest Center Kids Early Learning at around 6 months old,” Nathan says. “We knew we couldn’t go to just any daycare because of Jackson’s feeding tube.”

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.

UPDATE: Due to COVID-19, the Seattle Symphony has made the difficult decision to cancel performances through July 31, 2020. However, our composition partnership is still going strong! We’ll continue to update you about our progress and any future performances.​

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.
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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!”
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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. ​