Our Valued Partner: New England Village

I stopped by the other day at New England Village, our assembly facility, to check on some stuff for the Panic Button Light Switch Kits, and it prompted me to finally write this blog post, which I had been meaning to publish for a while. For the who didn't know, New England Village is a campus based community, and part of their mission is to "enable adults with intellectual disabilities to experience dignified, enriching lives...". At the assembly facility, that experience translates into providing their residents with real jobs that pay a real wage. We feel good about the fact that we're creating paid work for those with intellectual disabilities, but in practical terms, New England Village is a valuable partner, allowing us to scale our operation. Many people don't realize how much manufacturing is still manual, and indeed, the final assembly on the Panic Buttons and placement inside the retail packaging is done completely by hand. When our last pre-Christmas order of Panic Button Light Switch Kits came in, we realized we had grown to be more than a kitchen table business and needed serious help. Visiting NEV is a blast. Their work area is set up almost like a school cafeteria, air conditioned, with light assembly work going on at each of the tables throughout the room. I've even jumped in at an assembly table before and joined the chit chat while everyone worked. And the first time I went to visit, when they introduced me, everyone clapped. It was great.

They weren't working on my stuff on this last visit, but I snapped a quick pic of work in progress. It's definitely a cool feeling to see pallets of things you designed getting ready to ship, and it's a reminder that we wouldn't have been able to handle this sort of quantity without the residents at New England Village.