​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.

​Sandy is the “light of the world,” says Sarah Shafter, membership and corporate accounts manager at the Seattle Athletic Club (SAC). “She is someone truly special and an integral part of our team.”  
 
Sandy, a Northwest Center client and women’s locker room attendant “towel folder extraordinaire,” has worked at SAC for more than 12 years. “She’s an ‘institution’ and is loved by everyone at the club—members too,” says Shafter.
 
But last year, something happened that threatened to keep Sandy from the job she loves: a life-threatening stroke paralyzed her left side and affected her ability to talk and swallow.
 
SAC employees were devastated by the news. Sandy was in the hospital for more than three weeks and then was transferred to a nursing home. A few months later, she desperately wanted to return to work at SAC, but was not yet fully recovered.
 
“It looked like she would spend the rest of her life in the nursing home,” Shafter says.  
 
That’s when SAC employees decided to nurse Sandy back to health on their own.
 
“Each employee would take turns to visit her and would bring her back to the club for therapy swims and workouts to build her strength up,” says Lisa Huisingh, housekeeping supervisor and childcare director at SAC.
 
Due to the employees’ efforts, Sandy made progress and began walking again.
 
“We knew if we didn’t step in to help Sandy, she could still be in the nursing home today,” Huisingh says. “We missed her so much while she was gone and it’s a miracle to have her back on her feet without having to use special equipment to get around.”
 
The club was so happy when Sandy came back to work, they awarded her “Employee of the Month.”
 
“She’s taught me so much in life over the years, “Huisingh says. “To always be friendly, that it’s okay to be silly, and to never ever give up. We are blessed to have Sandy back and see her beautiful smile again that lights our world!”

“I don’t have Down syndrome; it’s a lifestyle,” Barbie exclaims as she sorts through hundreds of fibers and yarn at Paradise Fibers in Spokane.
 
“My hobby is knitting and being able to work with yarn and fiber; every day is a dream come true,” says Barbie. “Working here makes me feel more independent and I can do stuff on my own and earn money and spend it the way I want to.”
 
Barbie’s dream of knitting and working with fibers every day became a reality right away when she visited Paradise Fibers. Her employment coach scheduled a day for her to meet the entire store team and she was hired on the spot. “We all loved her immediately,” said Karlene Oliver, shipping and purchasing lead at Paradise Fibers. “We decided on that day Barbie was going to be part of the team because of her terrific personality and great smile.”
 
Not only does Barbie organize yarn in the store among many other duties she has at Paradise Fibers, but soon her own knitting work will be offered as part of the store’s Fiber of the Month Club, a subscription service that sends special yarns and other goodies each month to more than 500 members. Barbie will design the March 2019 box in honor of Down Syndrome Day, and she has requested that all proceeds from the blanket she knits will go to Northwest Center and the Down Syndrome Foundation of Spokane.
 
It’s not the first time Barbie has used her knitting skill to help others. She was so moved by the movie “The Fisher King,” she decided she wanted to help the homeless.
 
“It gets so cold at night during the winter,” Barbie says. “My favorite things to knit are hats and scarves so I can hand them out to homeless people and the elderly, too. I wanted to make sure to keep them warm.”

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 takes a lot of skill to become an artisan of donuts, and that’s what Anna is beginning to master. As a “donut engineer” at Retro Donuts in Spokane, one of Anna’s many responsibilities is to make sure the sweet treats are filled with delicious creams and jams. It’s a work of art.
 
“I take a regular donut and grind it up a bit and then push the fillings inside,” Anna says. “It’s a lot of fun and so rewarding knowing that someone is going to really enjoy eating it.”

In the back of Makers Mercantile in Kent sits a bakery; a bakery with a spotlessly cleaned kitchen.

“I have worked many places in the industry and no one has been as thorough as Crystal,” said Rumi, head chef at Rylie Cakes.

Crystal has worked at Rylie Cakes for a year.

Kam grabs a slice of “watermelon” from the play food on his family’s coffee table. He pretends to eat it, then offers some to Ricky, his dad.
 
It’s more than a happy family moment, says Susannah Major, a Speech Language Pathologist with Northwest Center Kids. “This is huge,” she enthuses. “Pretend play is such a prerequisite for language.”

​When a new shift begins, associates clock in and head to “Stand Up,” an area of the warehouse where managers go over daily announcements and celebrate top performers in front of their coworkers. For Mihret, who has worked for just over six months, Stand Up became a goal from day one.
 
Mihret, born in Ethiopia, is deaf yet does not know American or Universal Sign Language.  English is her second language and this makes communication and connection difficult for her. Yet in June 2017, Mihret came into work and saw her name, written in big green letters.  Mihret was awarded top performer.  Two days later, Mihret achieved her goal yet again. In fact, that day, three out of the four top performer awards were given to associates placed by Northwest Center, all with diagnosed disabilities.  

​By Richard Solomon, Lead Employment Support Coordinator
“One second.”
​
Conlan holds up a finger and furrows his brow, focused on the screen in front of him. He’s working as a Problem Solver at Amazon’s Prime Now warehouse (UWA1) in Kirkland, a job he found through Northwest Center Employment Services. The warehouse is a hub for Pacific Northwest fulfillment, with a torrent of inventory that gives him plenty to do.

​Stephan knows a thing or two about dancing in the rain. An avid hip-hop dancer, Stephan enjoys every day as a Donations Station Attendant for The Big Blue Truck™, no matter if there are sunny skies or some of our Pacific Northwest mist.

While Stephan is a happy, vital member of The Big Blue Truck™ team, it took some trial and error to find the job where he could excel. A member of the School-to-Work (S2W) program, Stephan was actively preparing himself for employment opportunities before he graduated from high school. It took some job coaching and training, but when Stephan saw the people in the Big Blue Truck™ he knew he wanted to join in.

Northwest Center is the recipient of Value Village’s 50 Year Partnership Award. Since 1967, we have had a long-term partnership with Value Village to collect clothing and household donations with our iconic Big Blue Trucks and blue donation bins. Value Village buys that merchandise to sell in its stores, and the revenue Northwest Center receives funds education and employment programs for children and adults with developmental disabilities in WA State.

Written by: Amy & Connor Doran
Edited by: Jennifer Owen
 
It started as a hobby. Pulling a string, defying gravity with every twist and turn of his body, Connor Doran knows how to fly a kite. He enjoyed gliding his kite through the crisp Washington air, but it wasn’t until 2009 that he thought to share his talents with the rest of the country. 

By: Tracee Christie
Writers: Jennifer Owen
 
Tracee, Senior Area Manager at Integrated Facility Services (IFS), has been with Northwest Center for 15 years and knows what it takes to succeed. From working long hours to personally inspecting with her teams the 1.6 million square feet of property she manages; Tracee knows that hard work and proper management leads to successful teams. 

Written by: Wendy Heddrick & Jackie Fountain
Edited by: Jennifer Owen
 
Innovation blossoms in environments that embrace diversity. At Argus, the female-run janitorial service defies the traditional insular, male dominated profession with a workforce largely consisting of women, minorities, and people of all abilities. We sat down with General Manager Jackie and Senior Manager Wendy to learn about their model of inclusive employment and all the strides Argus is making in the Pacific Northwest. 

More than a century old, Starbucks Center (formerly the Sears, Roebuck & Co. building) is a buzzing hub of retail, office, warehousing, and manufacturing activities. Each day, thousands of Seattleites drive by the iconic building, now home to one of the world’s most iconic brands. And behind the scenes of this two million square-foot, 17-acre operation is Brandon, who prides himself on keeping the facility as beautiful as it has been for the past 100 years.

When Tiago and Aviana were born two months prematurely, doctors told their parents that they would need to adjust expectations for the twins’ development. Developmental milestones including walking and speaking would likely develop on a different timeline than that of full term babies. Sitting for the average baby is usually around six to nine months. For Tiago and Aviana, it was much later.

On November 19, Evelyn Chapman, co-founder of Northwest Center, passed away.  She was 80.  It is with deep respect and honor that we express our sincere condolences to her family and to those that knew and loved her.  Her legacy and dedication to those she served lives on in the work of Northwest Center and the lives of those with disabilities that she fought for.  Evelyn and her late husband, John, an esteemed attorney, were always on hand to provide wise counsel to the management of NWC until recent years when health prevented them from doing so.  We are grateful for their tutelage and guidance over the decades. We hope to honor Evelyn here by reposting this story of her legacy with Northwest Center.

It was 1971, and Chapman was on the phone with the latest in a string of Seattle school officials she’d had to fight for years, just trying to make it possible for kids with developmental disabilities, like her son Coolidge, to get an education.

“I was talking to the Superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools,” she remembers. “The Special Ed director was keeping out kids like Coolidge. So I called his boss. I was very frustrated. He had a million excuses: we don’t have any money, we don’t have any mandate from the state, and on and on. I was on my kitchen phone, and I just kicked a hole in the wall.”

By Katia, Northwest Center Mom

Northwest Center Early intervention has helped me understand Alex. Everybody is so on top of things, helping me and helping Alex learn to eat. Before, I would chase after him if he left the table. Now I talk to him to engage him at the table so that he stays and eats more. Early Intervention has made changes happen.

Northwest Center is different from other programs I work with because there are several resources in your network like a nutritionist and feeding team, so I don’t have to wait for referrals to different places. We have meetings with his childcare, Early Head Start, Alex’s doctor and his nutritionist, which means that we are all on the same page, so there is connection and support. We are all trying to find a way together for Alex to work on the things that are hard for him right now.

Northwest Center is a 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Organization. We envision a day when all people have the same opportunity to learn, work and enjoy a fulfilling life. From birth to retirement, we support people with disabilities.
This story was originally published as part of Northwest Center's 50th anniversary project: 50 Stories Worth Sharing

The employees at Brown & Brown Insurance would like you to throw out any preconceived notions about working with people who have a developmental disability.

“You might automatically assume that, because they have a disability, that they’re unable to do the job,” says Account Executive Suzie Darst. “Out the window!” she exclaims. “Totally not the case. Not at all.”

She knows, because she’s worked with two colleagues hired through Northwest Center: Angelica, who works as an administrative assistant and manages the Brown & Brown Facebook page; and Steven, a young man with degrees in both English and Computer Science, who was hired to build the company’s website.

​Last year, Luke Madsen, Managing Director at Northwestern Mutual Bellevue, was impressed when Zach asked for more work to do in his job as data entry assistant. Well, Zach got his wish: he now tracks the daily activity of an entire fleet of insurance advisors.

“I help the first- or second-year financial advisors keep track of the people they call,” Zach explains.
“In our business, you have to make a certain number of phone calls, you need to meet with a certain number of people,” says Luke. “Zach has a system that he plugs all the information into.”

It sounds so simple. It was the late 1960s, and four Northwest Center founders—Cecile Lindquist, Janet Taggart, Evelyn Chapman, and the late Katie Dolan—were having a casual conversation with Ralph Munro (then an assistant to Governor Dan Evans, who would go on to become Secretary of the State of Washington). Now that Northwest Center was up and running, the women wanted to do more. Munro had a suggestion.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you write a mandatory law that children with disabilities will be served by public schools?’” Lindquist remembers. “‘We thought, ‘Well, there's an idea for you.’”

Of course, the actual path to that law wasn’t easy, but Northwest Center’s founders were used to hard work. The 80-plus-member Mother’s Guild raised money and awareness with everything from bake sales and bazaars to traveling lectures. Sherry McNary and Mary Bass, who were children at the time, remember the long hours their parents, the late Myrtle and Bob McNary and Nadean and the late Robert Bass, would put in. McNary recalls with amusement how she and her siblings “were always being dragged down there for work parties on nights and weekends. The families did everything.”

“But, boy, that was a good time. Just being with everyone,” Bass says.

Swell Cooks and Super Organizers
But the founders knew that parents who “did everything” was not a long-term solution for the kids with disabilities Northwest Center served nor for the thousands statewide who still had nowhere to go. Somehow, they had to influence the people who made the laws governing education. A first step was a luncheon for state legislators that the Mother’s Guild cohosted with the Association for Retarded Citizens (now The Arc). Dolan, a well-known local radio and TV personality, invited her friend Fred Dore, who was Chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee. He was the only lawmaker to show.

Interviewed by Susan Schwartzenberg for the book Becoming Citizens: Family Life and the Politics of Disability (University of Washington Press, 2005), Dolan remembered: “He said to me, ‘Katie, if you want to do this right—you gals are swell cooks and you’re a super organizer…here’s what you should do. It should last one hour, you have every parent call their legislator, and you tell them you’re going to have home-cooked food.”

The following year, Northwest Center followed that advice. Legislators were seated with constituents, there was a clear agenda to cover, and the Legislator’s Luncheons were an instant, long-lasting hit. By the 1980s, remembers board member Parul Houlahan, “We would get phone calls from all the legislators of King County, the city and the state: ‘I don’t want to miss the Legislator’s Luncheon! When is it?’ Even the bureaucrats would join us.”

They had the ear of the lawmakers; now they needed the law. “Katie Dolan was full of resources,” Chapman says. “She said, ‘Why don’t we go to the University of Washington Law School and see if there are any students to help us out?” Soon, students George Breck and William Dussault were on board, researching current legislation involving people with disabilities.

​In Becoming Citizens, Dolan describes the rest of the group as a law-writing dream team:

A Constitutional Right
When the team met with regional legislators and union leaders, they were told it would take years and upwards of $50,000 to pass a law. But then, Chapman says, “We learned to read the Washington State Constitution.” There in the Section 1 Preamble of Article IX was a crucial statement: “It is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders, without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.”

The newly christened Education for All Team now had their political ammo. They wrote 29 versions of the Education for All Act before they were satisfied. The final law not only mandated that Washington public schools educate all children, but also that schools failing to comply would lose important funding.

The team had a powerful ally in Lindquist’s cousin Dan Evans, who happened to be Governor of Washington. “Cecile and Katie did a good job educating me about developmentally disabled children who shouldn’t be in a state institution or who were prevented from going to school,” Evans remembers. He advised the team to seek out legislators who had children or relatives with developmental disabilities, because the law “would require real change in attitudes.”

‘Nothing slowed them down’
“I told all of them the same thing,” he says: “‘You have to contact and convince legislators—and there are 148 of them.’ Most organizations would say, ‘Oh, that’s impossible.’ Not Cecile and Katie. Nothing slowed them down.”

They also had the Mother’s Guild behind them. “We just had to call one or two mothers, and they would immediately make hundreds of calls to Olympia,” Taggart says. “Legislators would sometimes beg us, ‘Please, turn them off!’” she laughs.

When the bill finally went up for voting in the House of Representatives, “It got stuck in the rules committee,” Lindquist remembers. “One of the legislators did not want there to be sanctions.”

Governor Evans told the team, “‘We’re getting toward the end of the session, and there are 99 members. Contact them all if you can,’” he says. “Then I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s an impossible task.’ And the next day, they came back and said, ‘Well, we contacted everybody.’”

“And then it went on the floor and it passed,” says Lindquist.

“I was frankly amazed that they could get a bill of that complexity and cost out of the legislature as well and as rapidly as they did,” Evans says.

Gov. Evans signed House Bill (HB) 90, “Education for All,” into law in 1971, flanked by the team who had written and lobbied it into existence. The bill that was supposed to take untold years and $50,000 to get through the legislature had taken just one year and $500.

‘How come nobody ever told me?’
In a very real way, HB 90 led to nationwide change for people with disabilities. First, the team was invited to Washington, D.C. to meet with Senator Warren G. Magnuson.

“We each had our speech, explaining what happened in Washington state, how important it was the whole nation do this,” Lindquist says. “When we finished, there was dead silence in the room.”

Then, Taggart says, the senator suddenly thundered: “Do you mean to tell me there are little boys and girls who can’t go to school?”

“He looked at one of his aides and said, ‘How come nobody ever told me this?’” Lindquist says. “‘We will run a bill this year to change this nationally!’ We were shocked. And the aide is just like, ‘Oh, my God!’ The senator said, ‘There’s no debate. It’s wrong. We will change it.’ And he was a man of his word.”

Members of the team paid their own way to D.C. to help legislators draft the national law inspired by, and named for, their own. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act passed in 1975.

Citizens Who Cared
Big things were also happening at home. In 1967, Northwest Center was approached by William Ellison, who had just opened a thrift store in Renton, WA called Value Village. He proposed a partnership where Northwest Center would collect donated clothing that Value Village would purchase to sell in the store.

Former Northwest Center CEO Jim McClurg recalls, “The finance committee was a bit suspicious—what he was offering sounded too good to be true. But this group of volunteers wasn’t stupid. They invited Bill to make a presentation to the full board, who liked the way it sounded. It was probably one of the most important things we ever decided.”

Today, the partnership is still going strong: Northwest Center collects donations with The Big Blue Truck™ and The Big Blue Bin™ across the state to help fund Early Education and Employment Services.
​
In 1972, Dolan and Taggart launched family advocacy project The Troubleshooters. They understood the mass of paperwork and government entities families of kids with disabilities had to navigate, so they hosted “benefit parties” to help families fill out forms and published a newsletter with an advice column. Their work was so impressive that Professor Gunnar Dybwad, the leading disability rights advocate at the time, encouraged them to apply for a small scholarship from his wife’s foundation and use it to study disability and family life in Europe. Dolan and Taggart spent time living with families in England, Ireland, Scotland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, and Sweden.

“Upon our return,” Dolan remembered in 2005, “we wrote and successfully lobbied state legislation, which set up home aid for children with developmental disabilities.”
 
The Troubleshooters inspired legislation that established Protection and Advocacy agencies in every state. In 1987, The Troubleshooters became the Washington Protection and Advocacy System, an independent entity. Today, it’s known as Disability Rights Washington (DRW).

And of course, Northwest Center programs for children and adults continued to break new ground. Parents worked with the Seattle Parks Department to develop the Specialized Training Program, a clinical approach where students from age 5 to 20 learned appropriate classroom and work behaviors. An on-site workshop known as Special Industries provided training and employment for older students, whose woodwork was sold at craft shows and bazaars. Soon the shop landed the first of many business contracts, making soffits for a local home builder.

By 1975, Northwest Center education and job programs were serving more than 125 people with developmental disabilities, from infants to adults in their 40s.

In just 10 years, the families of Northwest Center accomplished a staggering amount with very little. That’s something that Evans says is an important lesson today. “They demonstrated what citizens who were dedicated to a proposal could really do,” he says. “It didn’t take huge amounts of money. It didn’t take paid lobbyists. It took citizens who cared.”