Fifth & final of five excerpts from testimony by Chris Brandt before the City of Bellevue Human Services Commission, March 16, 2010.

AtWork! partners with over 100 businesses and nonprofit organizations to provide jobs and volunteer opportunities. We have solid partnerships with the Snoqualmie Casino, Costco, Dunn Lumber, and Oberto Sausage, to employ several people with disabilities in their businesses.

AtWork! operates social enterprises in recycling, landscaping, and kitting and packaging lines of business to provide training opportunities, jobs, and a source of revenue for program operations. We have just signed an MOU with a for profit company USArchive to create a new line of business called: “USArchive Powered by AtWork!”. AtWork! now has full document management capabilities creating a new revenue stream, work trial and community based assessment opportunities, and new jobs for people with disabilities. In addition we were instrumental in launching the Puget Sound Network, a collaborative of 19 nonprofit agencies including AtWork! that are combining capabilities and expertise to capture larger commercial and government contracts with the goal of creating 25 new jobs by September 2010.

45 agencies in Washington State have formed a new advocacy organization, the Community Employment Alliance. Our united advocacy in Olympia this session yielded positive results. In the end, we expect that services for people with disabilities will receive fewer cuts than proposed by the Governor.

To read all five postings in this series see "Previous Posts" in the column on the right of this web page.