Sean C. Morgan
With help from the Sweet Home community, Sunshine Industries has started constructing a new building to handle growth in its programs.
“It’s going to be the home base for the yard crew and our maintenance shop and also maintain our record storage needs and janitorial needs,” said Bruce Hobbs, program manager for the project, which began last week.
“It’s going to allow us to do a lot of storage that we weren’t able to allow for in the main building,” said acting President Chuck Thompson. “It allows us space to do upkeep on our vans and our grounds equipment.”
Sunshine will be able to complete minor repairs to equipment and vehicles, Thompson said.
The building will measure 36 by 48 feet, Hobbs said. Bill Langdon Construction began work on the site Thursday, and Sunshine held the official ground-breaking cere-mony Monday afternoon, July 24.
Sunshine Industries is a nonprofit that provides work and social activities for persons with disabilities.
The new building will cost approximately $30,000, Hobbs said. Nearly half, $14,000, of the funding came from the organization’s last banquet, a spaghetti dinner held in April, which attracted 196 people.
The remainder will be covered by Sunshine’s general fund and replenished through future fund-raising events.
Growth in its programs is driving the need for a new building, Hobbs said.
“We don’t have a good place to store all the equipment.”
The maintenance crew has grown from one crew to three, he said, and the janitorial crew is busier. Sunshine’s vehicle fleet has grown from eight to 15 as a result.
Sunshine serves 92 clients, Hobbs said, and it has 24 employees, including substitutes, as it transitions to new government mandates to end sheltered work programs on-site and send clients into the community for work and pleasure.
Thompson said that Sunshine had about 60 clients when it moved to its current location on Clark Mill Road.
Sunshine has absorbed clients and contracts from the closure of a sheltered workshop in Albany, Thompson said.
And it has grown organically as programs improve and can serve more clients, Hobbs said.
“I think it’s really exciting,” said Executive Director Brittany Donnell. “It’s definitely showing a positive growth in the industry coming out of a time of being scared about the longevity of services.”
On the fun, social side of the business, at the beginning of the year, clients were spending about 120 hours a week collectively in activities out in the community, going to movies, shopping, fishing and more, Hobbs said. Now they’re out in the community 250 hours a week. Many clients are spending 2½ hours a day in the community.
In Sunshine work programs, clients spent 1,334 man-hours on the job in June, Hobbs said. That includes janitorial and yard maintenance services along with odd jobs.
On any given day, Sunshine yard crews will have a dozen clients out working in the community, Hobbs said. The janitorial service is busy four days a week.
To handle the activity and make the new building possible, “people really stepped up,” Hobbs said.
“The fund-raiser would not have been as successful without all of our wonderful silent auction, raffle, food and cash donors,” said Shalene Gill, office manager.
Sponsors included Timber Harvesting, Inc.; Rice Logging; Advanced Mechanical; Albany & Eastern Railroad; Keith Hartley of Edward Jones; Jamie Melcher of Keller Williams; Ridgeway Logging; Sherry Gregory Home Team, Keller Williams; and The Point Restaurant.
Most of them were table sponsors, Gill said. Some donated materials.
“A project such as this would not be done without the help of our sponsors,” she said. “Things like this show how great our community is.”