In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

WITH PLANTS AND PEOPLE FLOWERING, A BOTTOM LINE SUCCESS

In Business, September-October, 2005, Vol. 27, No. 5, p. 20

Rhode Island Center provides a vocational experience for disabled clients while creating an income-generating market for therapeutic activities.

Joan Retsinas

FOR 29 YEARS, the Groden Center in Providence, Rhode Island, has served its clients: people ages three to adult, most with autism or a related disorder. These clients don't easily connect with others: some are unable to speak; others are encased in psychic shells. The challenge for staff is to integrate these clients into the larger world.
The Greenhouse at a 300 year-old inner city burial ground, listed on the National Registry of Historic Places, helps them do just that. Since 1935, the city greenhouse, built by the Works Progress Administration at this cemetery, had provided flowering plants to visitors. Yet in 1988, when a head-gardener retired, the city finance department recommended that the city discontinue the greenhouse. The City operated four other greenhouses in its major park; however convenient this one was for cemetery visitors, it didn't merit the subsidy.
The Groden Center clients had worked in the other city greenhouses. They had transferred seedlings to pots, had raked, had weeded. As teacher Debra Romano explains, “everybody can do something, even a simple repetitive task like gathering pine cones, or punching a hole in the dirt. “ Clients enjoyed the sessions, especially “seeing the results of what they had done.”
The Groden staff saw the abandoned greenhouse as a vocational site for clients. Mike Smith, director of vocational programs, explains that the Center places clients in 22 local businesses, a few, like a window-washing venture, run by the Groden Network. All give clients concrete responsibilities - and, sometimes, paychecks.
The city saw the abandoned greenhouse as an eyesore that might segue into a disaster. After a few years of neglect, it risked being vandalized, or razed. So in 1995, when the Groden Center asked to operate the greenhouse, Robert McMahon, deputy superintendent of the city parks department, recognized the offer as an “opportunistic moment” for both parties.
The needs of clients and customers did not mesh at first. After a few years, the Groden staff recognized that a vocational experience for students would not necessarily yield a business that attracts customers. Customers wanted quality plants, attractively displayed, on sale at reasonable prices at regular times throughout the week. If the Greenhouse hoped to earn money, the business-side of the venture needed nurturing.

HAPPY COMPROMISE IN BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Subsequently the Groden Network hired a professional horticulturist, who turned the venture into a viable business. Plant quality improved, as did sales. Yet the greenhouse was established to nurture not just plants, but the clients who worked with them. And the latter goal suffered. In a business, productivity is crucial; and the temptation was to engage the most able clients. In a vocational program, the least able client - with the lowest productivity - needs the work experience the most.
Today the Groden Network has found a happy compromise. Romano and Gerren Martin, another teacher from the Center share not only an understanding of the clients, but a love of gardening. They are the full-time staff, and the greenhouse is a vocational work-site where they are assisted by crews of clients. Occasionally clients from other programs (with other disabilities) will help.
The greenhouse features popular seasonal plants. On a fall day, 1,900 (19 varieties) of chrysanthemums, priced at supermarket prices ($4 per pot), line the entrance. Inside are 1,800 tiny poinsettias, slotted to go on sale in time for Christmas. Customers include cemetery visitors, neighborhood residents and local businesses. Indeed, the Center's window washing customers are greenhouse customers.
The Greenhouse, moreover, has branched beyond plants. Romano, with help from a few talented clients, will do flower arrangements for weddings, showers, and birthdays. A client unable to speak is often graced with artistic ability; and the designs showcase that.
As for the bottom line, the Greenhouse's small profit enables it to pay two clients for 10 hours of work each. (The Groden Network pays the salaries of Romano and Martin, so the “expenditure” side of the greenhouse ledger excludes their salaries. The Network considers the greenhouse a teaching-site.) Those client-staff attend meetings, where decisions are made (type of plants, number to order), and where problems are discussed. In addition, dozens of clients work at the site throughout the year. Romano, Martin and Smith measure success by those numbers.