By Dan Sorenson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR 5/18/09
The nonprofit Beacon Group, which helps the developmentally or physically disadvantaged, just dedicated a $5 million, 34,000-square-foot expansion to the center where many of its clients work.
The group is made up of the old Beacon Foundation and Tetra Corp., two nonprofit agencies that merged about five years ago. Both had similar goals: helping people learn to work to the extent of their abilities and putting some of them to work in the organizations’ own facilities, said Patrick McCarthy, development director for Beacon.
The expanded facility is where some of the clients work packaging products, doing assembly, shredding documents and other labor-intensive manual work. The new facility combined the existing 30,000 square feet with another 34,000, roughly doubling its size. It includes large, open work areas, a gym, administrative offices and parking. It’s located at 308 W. Glenn St.
McCarthy said the largest segment of the Beacon Group’s clients is made up of adults with Down syndrome, followed by other chromosome-related conditions. He said Beacon also works with clients who are physically disabled, including hearing- and vision-impaired people.
Beacon recently won a suit it brought challenging the legality of a cut in funding from the state. McCarthy said the state is appealing the decision and that it’s not known when the appeal will be heard. But in the meantime, he said, it has at least halted any attempts to reverse expenditures by Beacon for the current budget year.
A Q&A with McCarthy:
Q: How many developmentally and/or physically disabled clients does Beacon help?
A: We put about 150 people a year into employment. We’re the largest employer of people with disabilities in Southern Arizona. Also, we’re in the top 110 largest employers in Tucson of any kind.
Q: What do your clients do? A: We do work for a lot of local businesses, parts, mailers, Fisher Industries, Madden Publishing. A lot of it is hand work; you have to put some parts in something and wrap it or package it. Our biggest job is assembly of aircraft rivets for Alcoa, over 30 million a year. An average big plane would take a million rivets. It has to be done by hand.
Also, the Glenn Street facility has a document-shredding biz, doing over 3 million pounds of paper a year for businesses— very, very large ones, such as Carondelet, the IRS, University Medical Center and hundreds of other local businesses, and also local people. The minimum charge is $25 for up to seven boxes, a couple hundred pounds. The shredding operation employs about 30 clients plus about five staff (members). They drive the trucks and head the crews, oversee the operation on the floor.
Q: What else do Beacon Group workers do?
A: People going out on work crews into the community do car washing, custodial, landscaping. . . . They’re not fulltime employees. They’re paid a wage and benefits.
Q: Has the economic slowdown had any effect on Beacon’s operations? Do you depend on grants?
A: No grants, but we do get fees for service. All the clients are placed here by various agencies (county, state, school system), and they pay a fee based on service they want us to provide — work adjustment, training.
Q: How did Beacon start?
A: Beacon started (in Tucson, more than 50 years ago) as a school, a school for young people with developmental disabilities, then became an adult program.
Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at 5734185 or dsorenson@azstarnet.com.
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