For 52 years, Handi-Shop Inc. has been a place where community members with disabilities are given an opportunity to develop real workforce experience and receive a regular paycheck for their efforts.

Its crowded and outdated facilities are in desperate need of upgrades to increase the efficiency of production, expand partnership opportunities and improve recycling plant operations.

Handi-Shop Inc. has begun the first phase of its $9 million expansion project, starting with the construction of a temporary building.

“This whole thing got started because we needed a new place to store our large items, and it just kind of grew,” Martin Keller, Handi-Shop Inc. manager, said.

In addition to increasing assembly space, the project will include the expansion of the Seconds To Go secondhand store, the relocation of the recycling plant to a larger, safer space and the addition of a job training program.

“I cannot hire someone with a disability 25 years of age or younger unless they’ve got a vocational training certificate,” Keller said, adding that they are difficult to get. “What we want to do is make it where we can do the training for that, and then they can either work for us with that certificate or the goal is for them to move out into competitive employment.”

The future program will be modeled off of successful programs at Boone Center in St. Peters and will include food service, hospitality and furniture repair training as well.

What is Handi-Shop Inc.?

The Handi-Shop is a sheltered workshop that provides a safe and highly supervised workplace, serving 11,500 Mexico residents and 25,000 Audrain County residents. It partners with a number of businesses in Audrain County such as Continental Products, True Refrigeration, Spartan Light Metal Products, Graf & Sons, Hubbell and Songbird Essentials.

Assembly work makes up 63% of the workforce at the Handi-Shop and the organization does a great deal for Gold Crest Distributing.

“We do a lot of assembly work for them, like bird houses and feeders,” Keller said.

The Handi-Shop employs roughly 55 people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, aged 20 to 82, who work six hour days doing assembly work for local manufacturers, shredding, recycled paper sorting, donation sorting, shelf stocking and baling clothes.

Keller said that the Handi-Shop is hiring, and the number of employees changes almost daily due to the nature of working with individuals with disabilities. He also struggles to find younger employees because of the difficulties associated with obtaining the vocational certificate.

Slow and steady

The Handi-Shop’s expansion has been in the works for quite some time, but with a project this size, securing essential funding is a waiting game.

“We received $2 million from the state,” Keller said. “Right now, we are working with a company to get new market tax credits — I think we should get $1.5 million from that.”

Keller reported that the Handi-Shop Inc. has been very fortunate receiving $6.7 million in funding so far — $2.6 million from the community, $500,000 from the Mabee Foundation and $3.6 million in public funding.

The fundraising board is in need of $800,000 from businesses, individuals and foundations to reach its goal.

“Hopefully this month, we are going to break ground on the new recycling center,” Keller said.
The new recycling center will face Holt Street and include a covered recycling drop-off area. The most important aspect of the recycling center updates, Keller said, is the open-floor concept that will reduce the number of blind corners that forklift operators will need to navigate.

After the construction of the recycling center, the Handi-Shop will turn its attention to the second hand shop. Currently, furniture and larger items are sold outside the Seconds To Go storefront on trailers in the parking lot, which Keller said is not ideal in bad weather, particularly in winter months. The new retail store will offer three times the sales floor space and a cafe. It will face Liberty Street and the donation drop-off will be on Tyronn Lue Boulevard.