Keeping up with the BAWACians 😎
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Quarterly Newsletter JUL - SEP 2024
Greetings Bawac Friends and Family!
We recently celebrated two exciting Bawac outreach and fundraising events. Our Annual Golf Outing was held on June 11th, featuring the legendary Lewis Johnson. Special thanks to Lewis for headlining this event over the past 20 years, along with Boone Links for hosting us. Shout outs to our stellar staff and volunteers for helping us make this event a success! Another recent event, Philanthropic Pints, took place on June 25th at The Metropolitan Club in Covington, with Bawac as the featured non-profit and beneficiary. This new event generated a great turnout as well as an opportunity to spread more awareness about how Bawac is transforming barriers into opportunities for people with disabilities.
I am continually impressed with our amazing staff who provide exceptional services to hundreds of clients each day across six counties in Northern Kentucky. Our Community Rehabilitation Services (CRS) team are achieving 97% of our program objectives, including but not limited to, communication skills, work skills, socialization skills, and other essential/life skills. Our Supported Employment program recently celebrated the 2023/2024 Project SEARCH interns, in partnership with Campbell County Schools and Northern KY University. In addition, we are excited to announce that we have our largest incoming class of interns (to-date) for the 2024/2025 school year! Bawac Transportation services continue to provide over 200 individuals a day with critical access to/from employment, day training programs, and non-emergency medical runs. Production & Industrial services are also seeing some additional projects on the horizon.
In other exciting news, we received a $30,000 Accessible Communities grant from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF) to purchase new furnishings and equipment for our Life Transitions program and Sensory Room. Thank you to GCF for this generous grant! We also received a $5,000 gift from the R.C. Durr Foundation. Thank you to Will Ziegler and R.C Durr for their support!
I want to thank our Board of Directors for making great progress on developing our new Strategic Plan, which will map out our vision for the next three-to-five years and expand our impact in the community. We will share more details on the new Strategic Plan later this year.
Finally, the month of July celebrates Disability Pride Month as an opportunity to honor the history, achievements, experiences, and struggles of the disability community. The celebration also commemorates the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was enacted in 1990. We are thankful for the progress made over the past 34 years as we continue the critical work towards optimal access and equity for people with disabilities.
Thank you for helping us transform barriers into opportunities!
-Jason
Jason Ashbrook, President & CEO
Welcome New Staff and Board Members...👋
Andrew C. Luken, Board Member is the Director of Business Operations, Professional Services with St. Elizabeth Healthcare. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) with over ten years of experience in the Finance and Accounting field.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance from the University of Cincinnati in 2011. He also received a Master of Business Administration degree in 2014 from Xavier University. He then received a Bachelor of Science Business Administration in Accounting from WGU and shortly after, obtained his Certified Public Accountant license from the state of Kentucky.
Andrew is active in the community serving on his church’s Financial Legacy Committee while also volunteering with the Special Olympics organization. When he is not working, he is usually at the Cincinnati Zoo or Cincinnati Museum Center with his wife and their two boys.
Brady Cline, Community Rehabilitation Specialist started on June 3rd in his position as a Community Rehabilitation Specialist. Brady graduated from NKU this May with a degree in Psychology. Brady has worked at The Gap Clearance Center as a Merchandising Lead for the past couple of years. In that position, Brady worked with a couple of clients from our Supported Employment program who are placed at The Gap. Fun fact: Both of Brady’s grandfather’s previously worked at BAWAC as drivers. Brady is from Hebron and he was raised in a large family. He enjoys fishing, golfing, and watching sports. Welcome aboard Brady!
Heather McCormick, Supported Employment Specialist. In addition to other positions, Heather worked for several years for Brighton Center and the Kentucky Career Center. In this role, Heather was involved in workforce development activities in a variety of capacities. This experience lends itself well to her current position and Heather has already been able to utilize some of her previous contacts for job placement and sponsorship opportunities for BAWAC. Heather enjoys living in a rural area and spending time with her dog. We are happy to welcome Heather to the team!
Applause Award Winners... 👏
This award recognizes employees for exceptional work, leadership, acts of kindness or service, great ideas, and/or boosting of morale. Applause Award recipients for April – June 2024 include the following:
- Jim George, Transportation Driver
- Mike Nagel, Transportation Driver
- Tammy Levi, CRS Assistant Manager/Life Transitions
- Barry Scott, Bookkeeper
Congratulations to these award winners!
Hitting the Mark... 🎯
Community Rehabilitation Services (CRS) - Pam Hunt retired from her role in Life Transitions after eight years. Staff and clients will greatly miss Pam, but we wish her the best in her next adventure! Thankfully, Pam will also continue providing First Aid/CPR training for us. CRS welcomed Brady Cline to their team. Brady has worked with several of our Supported Employment clients previously at The Gap outlet store. Life Transitions will be receiving new furniture, equipment, and other resources, as a result of a $30,000 grant from The Greater Cincinnati Foundation. Appropriated funds will also include major updates to the Sensory Room. CRS Support Specialist Anna Rust earned her Master's degree in Social Work in May. A new mini-van was made available to help expand community activity participation.
Supported Employment - Travis Evans was promoted to Assistant Manager of Supported Employment in April, while also celebrating 19 years of service at BAWAC. Heather McCormick joined the Supported Employment team on April 23rd. Referrals continue to flow steadily, and placements for Project SEARCH interns went up. Two new job placements and seven Person Centered Employment Plans (PCEPs) from May - June. One individual reached their 90-day milestone, with four additional clients approaching that achievement.
Production Services - Contract sales for the month of May were up 10%, compared to the previous month, which also included one holiday. Quotes for other jobs have been submitted and are awaiting responses to obtain additional work.
If your business needs quality production support, including assembly, packaging, and/or light manufacturing in a timely manner and believes in promoting social enterprise to create paid work training and opportunities for adults with disabilities, please contact production@bawac.org and let us know what we can do for YOU! How it works: 1) We analyze the job to determine if it is a good fit for our workers. 2) We do a mock time study to determine how long it will take to complete each portion of the job. 3) Production team determines ways to accomplish the job to ensure everyone will succeed. 4) Management uses formulas to determine cost to the vendor. 5) Bid is submitted for consideration.
Transportation Services - Transportation is currently serving over 200 individuals/day throughout six counties of NKY. Med runs are up and we now have three steady community job runs. All recently purchased vans have been credentialed for use. Staff work continuously to ensure all vehicles are meticulously maintained for the optimal safety and comfort of passengers and drivers.
Norse Project SEARCH ... 👨🎓
May was a big month for our 7th class of Norse Project SEARCH interns. They attended a Reverse Job Fair On May 9th at the Kentucky Career Center. The job fair gave the interns a platform to present themselves to potential employers and talk about their skills, abilities, and attributes. The interns came well prepared with picture poster boards as well as video resumes on their electronic devices that highlighted what they have been doing during the course of the year. All of the interns did a great job and the employers that attended were very impressed. The last day of the program was on May 24th and we celebrated the interns completion of the program at a reception on-campus on May 16th. Upon completion of the program, the interns are now actively seeking employment. One of the interns has already secured a job placement and started in June.
One Project SEARCH Senior’s exit interview: “My junior year was very hard on me. I got in a lot of trouble and was constantly involved in peer drama.” She started NKU’s Project SEARCH program in her senior year and said “It has completely changed me. I have learned so much through this program and I am really thankful that I have learned to just ignore drama and do my job. Being a resilient person will highly prepare me for my future because I know that I can handle hard situations.”
Fundraising & Events... 💰
BAWAC at the Ball Park - Come celebrate Christmas in July with BAWAC and the Florence Y'alls vs Sussex County Miners, Friday, July 26th at 7pm. Donate a $30 gift tag or gift card from our client wish list for our BAWAC Stars Holiday Gift Drive program and be entered into a drawing for a family pack of Deck the Y'alls tickets and dinner at Buffalo Bob's Family Restaurant! Take photos with Santa, and receive a Y'all Star Christmas Gnome if you are one of the first 1000 guests through the gate! Get your reserved tickets now at ballparkfun2024.givesmart.com.
Our first Philanthropic Pints event at The Metropolitan Club in Covington was a hit! Thank you to our hosts Robbie Jennings Michaels and Doug Bolton for creating a warm and welcoming evening for our 60+ guests, and to those same attendees who came to engage with our board members and management team in support of our mission and vision. We're looking forward to more opportunities to connect and grow our relationships with the community.
Our 2024 Annual Charity Golf Outing was above par! This year's BAWAC Annual Charity Golf Outing welcomed 108 golfers to Boone Links Golf & Event Center for a day of fun and purpose. The weather couldn't have been better! Our Founder, Ken Schmidt, hung out with us for the afternoon and enjoyed a bit of unexpected "celebrity status". We celebrated Lewis Johnson, Russ Gartner and Mark "Doc" Cawley for 20, 25 and 30 years of commitment to this event. Thanks to the support of our players, hosts, sponsors, private donors, and our volunteers (especially from TriState Connections group and the VA), our event raised just over $18k!
Stay up to date on all things BAWAC... 🔎
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