ELM Spotlight
A Better Business Model: The Bridges Foundation and L-OMA™ Helps People With Disabilities
tered buckwheat pillows. After owning and operating the company herself for over ten years, she decided to retire. In 2005, she donated the entire operation to The Bridges Foundation, which now uses L-OMA Organic Buckwheat Pillows™ to further its mission of helping people with disabilities to ultimately help themselves.
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The Bridges Foundation The Bridges Foundation is a non-profit,
charitable organization in Standish, Maine. They provide educational, employment, social and recreational opportunities for persons with sensory and/or energetic sensitivities, and learning, emotional and/or developmental disabilities. They approach these individuals as possessing different skills and abilities, and volunteers devote their time and energy in hopes of creating a new paradigm in service provision to them. They hope to blend the best aspects of the non-profit and for-profit sectors to work together in assisting the people they support while providing the public with products and services worthy of their dollar, and seeing everyone profit from their work at the same time.
Individuals with developmental dis-
abilities work alongside Bridges Foundation staff making and shipping L-OMA Organic Buckwheat Pillows™, as they earn a living wage while at the same time helping raise money to fund programs and services for themselves and others. They are making a therapeutic product which benefits people around the world; they are also becoming more self-reliant and financially indepen- dent. They are less dependent upon receiv- ing government aid in the form of monthly disability payments, and they are also promoting a small business dedicated to funding services for persons with disabili- ties. This also helps reduce the overall tax burden as their benefits decrease.
School, Family and Community Outreach Services
The needs of children experiencing learning, emotional, developmental chal-
-OMA™ was established by Heidi Fogarty in 1993 after a family trip to Germany, where she first encoun-
lenges and/or energetic sensitivities can be varied and particular to each individual. In response to this need, The Bridges Foundation has assembled an integrated treatment team of professionals to provide a unique combination of mainstream and holistic modalities designed to empower, not enable, their clients. They offer an extensive and flexible array of services that can individually address the specific needs of highly sensitive children in their school, home and the community at large. As opposed to sending your child away to a residential program, this service comes to you; one of their primary aims is to keep the families they serve together and whole.
Respite Services
The Bridges Team recognizes that hav- ing a family member who has a sensitivity, disability or other challenge can be a very stressful and exhausting experience and that the need for a break to rest and recover one’s energies is vitally important. They also recognize that each family is unique and that different types of respite can be helpful in each situation. Because of this, they offer respite services that can be provided in the family home, as well as in the home of the potential respite provider. Respite providers can host individuals in their homes for predetermined periods of time, and/or providers may stay in family homes to caretake for both individuals and the family home, or can be provided on an hourly basis in the community. Respite ser- vices are available for a private, pay-for-fee service basis and various payment options are available.
Social Programs Whether it’s music, the arts, sports,
sensory integrative activities, cooking groups, the Foundation provides a wide variety of both socially therapeutic and recreational activities open to the public, led directly by Foundation volunteers or sponsored through area human service organizations. The Foundation is always looking for people who would like to share their talent or skills through providing activities to their members and would also love to receive donations of any materials or equipment for their groups or activities.
Vocational Programs Since taking over operations of L-OMA
Organic Buckwheat Pillows™, the Founda- tion has been able to create part-time work for individuals with developmental dis- abilities making and selling the company’s products, and they are now involved in all aspects of the operation of the business. Virtually any ability level can be accom- modated; while some workers have been able to assume complete responsibility for some aspects of the business, others have been able to master one task which they find fulfilling and are necessary. Whether someone arrives already possessing skill sets or this is a first-time job experience, the Foundation makes every effort to match an individual with work which they will both be able to succeed in completing and which they find gratifying.
The Bridges Foundation truly believes their business model is one that should be adopted by other businesses. They have chosen to lead by example to show what it’s like to tap into the full worth of each individual's potential, which in turn will contribute to society as a whole.
The Bridges Foundation is partially support- ed from sales through L-OMA™, however they still rely on donations and volunteers for further support and to enhance their current offerings. To learn more about The Bridges Foundation and how you can either access services or help their organization, visit:
www.thebridgesfoundation.org. And to purchase L-OMA™ buckwheat prod- ucts, please visit:
www.l-oma.com. See L-OMA ad on page 29.
www.EssentialLivingMaine.com 9
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