By Patricia Reynolds
Business Journal Writer

    Even during the best of times, teens and adults with disabilities often struggle to find jobs.
    In case you hadn’t noticed, these aren’t the best of times.
    But in good times or bad, the Howard Training Center in Modesto helps bridge that job gap, creating opportunities for disabled people from 18 to 85, while providing skilled work crews for businesses.
    It’s a needed service.
    An estimated 49,000 Stanislaus County residents are disabled, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. That represents about 13 percent of the county’s working-age population.
    The Howard Training Center has been on the job in Stanislaus County for more than 50 years and is the largest employer of adults with disabilities in the county.
    Funded by the Department of Disability Services, the Department of Rehabilitation Services, and contracting community businesses, the center provides support and training through its vocational work programs. Through work, the center helps participants find a meaningful place in the community.
    “It’s overcoming the barriers.  That’s what work is all about, and work for all of us gives us meaning to our lives,” said Lynn Traver, the center’s director of development.
    Production Unlimited and Culinary Services are the center’s primary vocational work programs. Each program focuses on teaching skills necessary for success in the workplace.
    The Production Unlimited program operates out of a 5,000 square-foot building on Empire Avenue. At the facility, program participants learn the basics of work life while performing tasks for businesses under contractual arrangements with the center.
    “For people that haven’t worked before,” said Betty Arwood, director of vocational services for Production Unlimited, “this is where it’s going to get them in the routine of being responsible as far as attendance, as far as their quality of work, as far as even how to follow directions from a supervisor.”
    Modesto-area businesses hire Production Unlimited workers to complete labor-intensive and repetitive jobs, including labeling, sorting, collating, billing and packaging. Many of the businesses working with Production Unlimited have on-going contracts because the workers perform their tasks with skills and efficiency.
    The Modesto Hope Chest uses Production Unlimited laborers to sort, hang and tag donated clothing before it’s displayed and sold in its thrift stores.
    John Renner, retail director for Community Hospice, says the center has provided Hope Chest with an excellent source of labor for more than four years.
    “They process all the clothing we sell in our thrift stores,” he said. “It’s a great outlet to help keep up with the demand with the clothing we sell. It also helps save us some labor in order for us to focus on other Hope Chest departments.”
    Production Unlimited pays the worker wages and charges Hope Chest for each garment processed.  Renner said Hope Chest picks up from 5 to 10 racks of processed clothing each day from center. That represents about 70 percent of all the clothing donated to Hope Chest.
    To ensure that expectations of Hope Chest and its customers are met, Production Unlimited supervisors check all work for quality and completeness. Program participants, meanwhile, learn how to perform to the standards a business requires of its employees.
    “We can’t emphasize again that quality control is an important issue,” said Traver. “Because although we first talked about it as a training issue on the point of view of our participants, we want to make sure that the business people understand that the work that they contract with us is going to be quality work and that it is done in a timely manner.”
    The center’s Culinary Services program also provides the disabled with needed employment skills.  Participants learn and complete tasks related to food preparation and other food services jobs.
    With a grant from the Mary Stuart Rogers Foundation, the Culinary Services kitchen is commercially outfitted.  Participants learn how to operate equipment while fulfilling contracts such as the Senior Meals Program for Stanislaus County, a job that entails preparing and delivering more than 1,000 meals a day.
    Once Production Unlimited or Culinary Services program participants have mastered basic jobs skills, they are ready for jobs in mainstream workplaces.
    “From here they go to what we call enclaves; smaller groups that are contracted,” said Arwood. “We have the City of Ceres, for instance. We contract all their road maintenance, as far as keeping their landscaping trimmed, weeded, through the city.”
    Jeff Dunn is the Landscape Services contract supervisor at Howard Training Center. Dunn oversees nine adults in the three enclaves working for Ceres. The center’s training and work experience strategy, he said, has been very successful.
    “One week after we’d been hired and at work,” he said. “People who had previously complained to the city about trouble areas were calling in and saying how happy they were.”
    The center works with about 20 businesses and organizations, including JCPenney, Wal-Mart, California Department of Transportation, Volk Industries and Stanislaus County Juvenile Hall; where work enclaves serve three meals a day, 365 days a year.
    Traver says the center’s vocational programs benefit area businesses and individuals alike; toppling barriers that keep people from work.
    Ernie Hernandez, a landscape work enclave participant, said he enjoys the program.
    “I like this job,” Hernandez said. “I get along with everyone.  I do the landscaping, weeds, trim bushes. I like to keep everything nice.”