As parents of an adult with Down Syndrome our life, for the past 32 plus years, has been centered around the ongoing needs of our son.
Those needs have obviously changed from when Josh was in school full-time.
Upon aging out of the school system we asked ourselves, and others—What’s next for Josh and those like him?
The common answer was—“Not much.”
Out of that came our creating The PIER Center for Life Enrichment. Since, Cindy is an Enneagram Type 3 – Achiever and I am an Enneagram Type 1 – Perfectionist, it took all of the strengths we could muster to make a better future for our son.
Although there have been several iterations of The PIER, when Cindy said to me that she wanted to make dog treats my response was—You want to do what? She had been researching options of things our guys at The PIER, could do to create purposeful work. She landed on dog treats.
So as we have done all of Josh’s life we worked to make it happen.
That’s the way it is for parents of those with different abilities. When there seems to be no way, we make things happen–So now we are making Ellie Mae Sweet Treats.
This idea was met with great enthusiasm by nearly every person we shared it with—Once we did a little explaining. But it has also been one of the hardest concepts for others to grasp a hold of.
Most business minds want us to build a big machine, mass-produce and make a killing.
But that is and never has been the purpose. The purpose has always been to provide purposeful work for the people we serve.
It’s certainly no “Get rich quick” scheme—But our people love what they do.
To find out more about The PIER Center and Ellie Mae Sweet Treats go to www.thepiercenter.org.
