zations to volunteer at such events, so it’s a great model for businesses to pay attention to. DIRECTIONS has the volume, the capacity now to partner with so many busi- nesses throughout the province. Any business looking for services should know that we can deliver on a variety of platforms, more than we ever could before, in fact, and that’s pretty exciting to me. JT: The town of Antigonish has been a very solid employer for theCACL. Over the last several summers, we’vemanaged to secure contracts with the town’s Communities in Bloom program, which is a beautification project and national competition that sees flowers and plants placed through- out Antigonish. The town has actually won this competition before, which has become a great marketing tool. One of the key components to scoring this competition is inclusive hiring and that’s where we come in. With a non-motorized system, people from the CACL with primarily intellectual disabilities go around the town and water the flowers. It’s a great job, they’re making money, and the town is even more beautiful because of them. From the top-down, from the Mayor’s office down, people have tremendous pride in what our gang is doing for the town every single day. MT: These kinds of examples are getting noticed by big businesses. Recently, Sobeys has really ramped- up their efforts to increase the social impact of their inclusive hiring in communities throughout Atlantic Canada. The effort Sobeys puts in to navigating the non-profit sector to accomplish this goal is commendable. They’ve approached DIRECTIONS as a network and we are in discussions with them about a number of developments. The Senior Director of Human Resources and Retail at Sobeys Atlantic, is really motivated to strengthen their connection with DIREC- TIONS. We have individuals from several of our organiza- tions working at Sobeys locations and I think it’s something people are going to be seeing more of. Because we have 29 organizations that span the entire geographic scope of the province and increasing capacity as a result of commu- nicating successes, I think more and more businesses will seek out long-standing partnerships with us. So much of business is relationship-based and those relationships are
increase outcomes in the area of employment – and also in the area of social enterprise. Just in the last year, we’ve been given funding to assess our potential in the social enterprise area and to look at what’s happening in other provinces and jurisdictions within Canada and internation- ally. We are now on the verge of a significant expansion of our social enterprise operations. “We have a lot of people from our organization who are out in the community working because of the support of many employers in town and in the county. Everyone knows who we are and what we have to offer.” Does having such an impressive network within the province with clients as ambassadors help places like the town of Truro when it comes to applying to host big ticket events like the 9 th Down Syndrome World Swimming Championships next July? DM: It’s extremely important; having a banner to all get behind is very powerful. It’s a great mechanism for commu- nication and what’s more, the reputation of DIRECTIONS as a strong collaborative entity is long-founded. On a side note, Aimee Gordon, who works here at the Haley Street Adult Centre, recently traveled to Austria to compete in the Special Olympics World Winter Games. She’s a speed skater and the first person from Cape Breton to attend worlds. It’s really been a media circus and we couldn’t have a better ambassador for what it is we can accomplish as organizations. Aimee’s work ethic is an inspi- ration to everyone here. HS: I think we are just beginning to maximize those sorts of opportunities. I know that there is a great deal of interest from clients and employees from many member organi-
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • APRIL 2017
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