“Building Stronger Communities”
The story of New Avenues to Independence Inc. is not only about how the organization addresses the needs of the developmentally disabled and the disadvantaged. It’s also about how New Avenues blends a business model with a not-for-profit mission.
When it was founded 62 years ago, the group consisted of parent volunteers who wanted to offer children with disabilities educational, vocational and recreational experiences.
One feature that makes New Avenues unique is its vocational services program, which partners with local businesses and accomplishes a dual mission.
“The not-for-profit side of it is to employ people with disabilities who will make a decent wage; we fulfill our mission at the same time we are generating sustainable models that are also helping the environment and local businesses,” says Thomas Lewins, New Avenues’ executive director.
A focus on recycling materials
More than 150 business partners use the services of Buckeye Industries, the business enterprise division of New Avenues. Buckeye Industries comprises four entities: a document destruction center, a Styrofoam recycling facility, a pre-incision medical waste processing site and a plastic recycling facility. People with disabilities staff each facility.
The Styrofoam recycling facility is the only one of its kind in Ohio, Lewins says. Another unique project has been pre-surgery medical waste processing.
“We have already engaged more than 20 of the Cleveland Clinic hospitals, and we have 18 of the University Hospitals,” Lewins says. “We process all the Styrofoam from their labs, and we process all the pre-incision medical waste from their operating rooms. We are the only one in the country now that is doing that.
“The doctors open the packages and only use what they need for the specific surgery. So anything that is not used, prior to incision, goes to us.”
It begins with a relationship
While the recycling and employment efforts are impressive, so is the process that spawned the enterprises. Lewins says it all starts with a relationship.
“With our business contacts that we have, once they supply us with cardboard or Styrofoam or whatever, we say, ‘OK; now tell us about a need you have that you can’t seem to find a way to solve. Let’s see if we can find a way to match what we can do with what your need is and save you some money so we can put people to work,’” he says.
For instance, a business contact from the waste management industry recently told New Avenues that a company had been collecting Redbox plastic video cases after they’ve been returned and discarded.
That got the wheels turning at New Avenues, and a new enterprise was born.
“We’ve already processed 1 million of those cases, cleaning them up, and then we crush them, bind them, sort them by color, and companies make other products out of them. We’ve done a million of them, and they have 19 million more for us to do.”
For Lewins and New Avenues, thinking out of the box is a routine that leads to success. “It’s a matter of trying to be creative in ways that traditionally not-for-profits don’t think about, in terms of the private/public sector collaboration as well as a business/community collaboration.” ●
How to reach: New Avenues to Independence, (216) 481-1907 or www.newavenues.net
