On West 31st Street is a 66,000-square-foot production facility buzzing with employees hard at work. This is Cottonwood Industries, a division of Cottonwood, Inc. Since 1972, they have partnered with businesses nationwide to provide high-quality, cost-effective, light industrial services such as assembly, packaging, warehousing, and mailing.
All Cottonwood employees have some form of mental or physical disability. Their work gives them both a paycheck and skills that can be utilized for employment outside the facility. Currently, they work for approximately twenty business partners on various projects.
On a recent afternoon, one large production area was busy assembling cargo tie-down straps for the U.S. Department of Defense, a contract Cottonwood Industries has had for 24 years. The DOD has recognized the facility for superior product quality, on-time delivery, superior customer service, reliability, dependability, consistency, and accuracy.
Anne Kennedy works at putting the clasps on the straps. She has worked at Cottonwood for three years, both in sewing and quality control. At 60 years old, she is on Social Security disability.
"What everyone thinks of as disabilities, Cottonwood sees as abilities," says Kennedy.
In another area is a conveyor belt full of red fabric poppies assembled for Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) for distribution this Memorial Day. Karrie Metzger is busy placing the stems through the fabric flower and then sending them along the belt to be finished and packaged for shipping. When she's not at Cottonwood, she is at Target, where she's worked for 20 years.
Also in production that day are parts for pumps used by municipal water systems and plastic cups covered with comic characters being packaged for sale at party stores. Another area is set up to sew steering boots for McFarlane Aviation Products to go in airplanes.
Cottonwood Industries works as a subcontractor for businesses that need a job done but find it's not cost-effective for them to do it in-house. Ettie Brightwell, community relations director for Cottonwood Incorporated, says, "We're looking for opportunities where we can partner with local businesses, using our workforce, who are earning a paycheck, but they're also doing a service for the community. We can be a great business partner."
Robert Bieberle, business development manager, explains, "Sometimes businesses cannot get people to do the work. Sometimes, it's a limitation of space. We have the space. We have the people, and we do the training and the quality control. When the product leaves here, it's complete and can go on their shelf."
"Look at it like this," says director Duane Turnbull: "McFarlane Aviation used to sew their steering boot internally until recently. We are now capable of doing those types of things, so we're trying to find new partners to bring in more business so we can help teach even more job skills to the people we have employed."
He adds, "The great thing right now is, when Robert goes out into the community with a lead, probably seven times out of ten, it's due to an inability to hire people. We have a ready-made workforce here that wants to come to work every day."
That workforce is driven by personal choice. Each employee can choose how much time they spend working. For example, some work half a day and then go to other activities Cottonwood offers. Others go home for half the day, while some, like Karrie Metzger, work at jobs outside of the facility.
Production Coordinator Steve Steinbach says, "The folks who choose to work at Cottonwood Industries are focused and really enjoying it. The pace is a little quicker, and there's a really good positive momentum. It just feels like a busy, happy workplace."
Businesses interested in partnering with Cottonwood Industries can learn more at CottonwoodIndustries.com or contact Robert Bieberle at 785.842.0550 and rbieberle@cwood.org.
"Locally in Lawrence, I want to change the thought process of people that drive by here and wonder what this building is," Turnbull says. "We want to become a business partner—a subcontractor for local businesses. We don't want to be looked at as just a place doing something nice by giving jobs to people with disabilities. That's not what we're about. We are a subcontractor that happens to employ people with disabilities."
"We have a ready-made workforce here that wants to come to work..."
"We want to become a business partner..."
