Goodwill Effort to Make Deadline
When Keepers International, a Chatsworth-based hosiery manufacturer, needs extra help getting a big order out the door, company President Steele Davidoff often turns to a team of workers located about 25 miles from his office.
“With salaries and workers’ compensation insurance, it’s very expensive for us to hire and train extra people,” said Davidoff, who instead relies on Goodwill Industries’ contract services division to help meet tight shipping deadlines.
“We are very pleased with the work,” Davidoff said. “It’s a good way to contribute to the community, and they do an excellent job.”
Goodwill, best known for its thrift stores, operates 160 contract services divisions across the United States, according to Nicholas Panza, president of Goodwill Industries of Southern California. The divisions recruit and train disabled or economically disadvantaged people, providing them with job skills and experience while also helping local business owners.
“Our ultimate goal is to get these folks back into the real world,” Panza said.
Los Angeles contract services manager Kathleen Moore divides her time between attracting new clients and conducting studies so she can bid on new projects. Once Goodwill wins a contract, a sample of the work to be done is shared with the team of workers assigned to the project. All the work is done at Goodwill’s headquarters building on San Fernando Road, east of Downtown.
One recent morning, about 90 employees were busy in the airy, bustling workshop, carefully assembling boxes, inserting videotapes and affixing mailing labels to thousands of cassettes for a Disney resort promotion. Others were sorting thousands of hangers for return to Robinsons-May department stores, repacking bottles of salad dressing for a food importer and sorting reply cards for a philanthropic organization. One man was inspecting and sorting drill bits before they could be returned to a major aerospace company for sharpening.
Most months, there is plenty of work for everyone on the contract services division payroll.
“We can’t hire people fast enough,” Moore said as she surveyed the spacious work area.
Upstairs in another part of the building, Steve Golden has taken the concept even further and moved his own employees into the building to work side by side with the Goodwill workers. Golden’s videocassette duplication and recycling company is keeping dozens of Goodwill workers busy. Golden, who owned a film company in Europe, came out of retirement at the urging of his friends to start Quest Services.
Every year, he said, 300 million videocassettes flood the market and millions end up in landfills. Today, companies like his recycle and sell millions of used cassettes to consumers for home use.
“Last year we recycled 6 million cassettes,” Golden said. “This year we’ll do 12 million.”
Quest’s Goodwill workers are also trained to duplicate tapes by loading them into nearly 1,000 industrial-quality videocassette recorders. Most consumers would be surprised to learn that to maintain high quality, videotapes are duplicated one at a time and must be loaded and unloaded by hand.
“The Goodwill workers are just as capable as anyone else,” Golden said. “They have problems, but they are willing to work hard and willing to learn.”
As soon as new machines are installed, Quest’s workers will be trained to load raw videotape into the plastic cases.
Golden said the tape recycling and duplication business is growing so fast that he’ll eventually be operating two shifts a day, seven days a week.
Goodwill’s Panza said that as his workers become more skilled, they move into more challenging positions. Eventually, they are encouraged to quit and move into the mainstream work world.
“We purposely try to lose our best employees,” he said.
For more information on Goodwill’s Southern California contract services division, contact Kathleen Moore at (213) 223-1211, ext. 102. Be prepared to provide a sample of the work you want done. Although Goodwill can meet tight deadlines, Moore said it prefers to have two to three weeks to complete a job. Outside Southern California, contact your local Goodwill office.
Briefly . . .
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