50 Years, 50 Stories - Lori Strader

This week’s “50 Years, 50 Stories” illustrates a point I often try to make - that we as Imagine! employees can (and do) have an impact at times and places when we are least expecting it to happen, and often in ways we don’t expect. Thanks, Lori, for sharing your story!

 

Lesson Learned: Purpose in Life and Giving Back to the Community

By Lori Strader

The fall of 1989 I moved from Dayton Ohio to Boulder Colorado with my sister. When I lived in Ohio, I worked for organization called Resident Home Association. I managed a group home of eight men. Seven out of those eight men attended the local workshop. All seven of those men were capable of being integrated in the community through volunteering or working. But day after day they went to the workshop doing line assembly jobs or sitting around doing puzzles. Most of the time they were bored and displayed inappropriate behaviors due to being bored and not feeling purpose in life. So when I came to work for Labor Source twenty three years ago, I was excited to work for a company that promoted integration in the community and giving back to the community by volunteering for non-profit organizations. Workshops were very common twenty three years ago. Not individuals being integrated.

One of the first volunteer placement jobs I was trained at was the old run down homeless shelter on Broadway in Boulder. At the homeless shelter the volunteer crew washed and dried bed sheets from the cots at the shelter, and we also washed the donated clothes. The laundry room was in a garage. There were three consumers who had autism who did the volunteer work. One of the gentlemen would stand in a corner repeating “Mommy” every few minutes, the second crew member would sit at the folding table singing Christmas songs no matter what time of the year , and the third consumer was non-verbal and usually laid on the dryer and really enjoyed the vibration from the machine.

On good days I could get them to do some of the work. I knew my job was to engage them as much as possible to do the task, giving them a sense of purpose and giving back to the community. One day I was not able to get anyone to focus. The “MOMMY”s were loud, the Christmas songs were non-stop, and the dryer was too warm to get off of. I started to question what we were doing there. The community did not know what we were doing since we were not working in integrated setting. We were alone in a garage.

Then a shelter staff person walked in looking for a suit to wear for a job interview. He told me when our crew came to volunteer he was not happy about it. He used to do the job we were doing and the shelter had been paying him some money to do the work.

Then he watched us do the work. The volunteer crew inspired him. He felt if individuals with a severe disability could do the work, then he could do a job outside of the shelter. He had been homeless and was working on his next step transitioning to go into the community and wanted a job where he could feel purpose and feel good about himself. He was very excited and said “Thank you” to all of us. After that day I did not see him again and assumed he got a job and left the shelter.

After that day I also realized the importance of having some purpose in life no matter how small the task may be. That lesson is what Labor Source gave me.

Bonus pictures: check out this variety of Labor Source logo T-shirts from years past.

 

 

Are you interested in sharing your story for “50 Years, 50 Stories?” If so, contact Caroline Siegfried at caroline@imaginecolorado.org or 303-926-6405. We’d love to hear from you!