Working on Independence : After seeing a disabled niece blossom when given a job, print shop’s owners founded a program so others could have the same opportunity.

Jane Sunahara’s invitation to help her developmentally disabled niece worked out better than she ever expected.

Sunahara hired her niece six years ago to work at her Western Avenue print shop in Gardena. Melissa Medina took printing orders, answered the telephone and eventually ran the warehouse store by herself.

Sunahara realized she was on to something when Medina, an adult who some teachers had said could never take care of herself or develop beyond fourth-grade level, became so self-sufficient while working at Sunahara’s print shop that she moved out on her own.

“We knew that if our niece could accomplish all that she did, there must be other people out there who could do the same but just needed a chance,” Sunahara said.

Fresh from her niece’s success, Sunahara and her brother Richard founded the Independent Management Unlimited Achievement program. The 4-year-old organization has so far trained 15 special-needs individuals in the printing business and has provided them all with jobs.

At IMUA, which means onward and upward in Hawaiian (Sunahara is a native of the island state), 10 trainees are working a 40-hour week to learn the printing trade. All the printers-in-training have disabilities that prevented them from finding a job in the past. Basic training takes about six months and, after completing it, trainees--who range in age from 17 to 36--become official employees.

“We want to give them opportunities here that they just don’t get,” Sunahara said. “They are capable of accomplishing anything but most of them have never been given a chance to see that.”

Trainee Agusto Fernando Cortez III read an article about IMUA in a community newspaper more than a year ago, went to the shop the next day and asked Sunahara for a job. A speech impediment and hearing problem made finding work difficult, he said.

Tom Luyando worked as a janitor before coming to IMUA and, although he had been placed in that job by a training program, he worked only 10 hours a week. Luyando said he spent a lot of time and money riding the bus between his Gardena home and the Torrance warehouse where he worked and never felt that his employer gave him enough to do.

“They made me do the same old thing every day,” Luyando, 27, said. “Here [at IMUA] I get to do different things.”

Luyando, who is developmentally disabled, went to a school for the disabled through junior high school and was placed in a remedial program during high school. Until then, he said, it seemed as though no one was willing to give him a chance. But that all changed after his mother told him about IMUA after meeting Sunahara at a ballgame. Now, Luyando glows when he prints business cards or when the camera needs to be fixed. He heads many other projects and says he’s proud of them all.

“It’s the first job I’ve ever felt completely comfortable at,” he said.

Luyando has learned quickly during his five months at IMUA, Sunahara said, but many tasks don’t come easily to some trainees. Sunahara gives them each an unlimited amount of time to master the basics, such as folding a paper evenly in half, or stuffing envelopes. Once these tasks are learned, she advances her students to jobs such as inventory control and accounts payable.

Each member earns a small stipend--about $100 per month--during training. Once they have completed the program, graduates are hired in minimum-wage jobs at the print shop.

The Sunaharas each take a small salary and have switched their business to a nonprofit status to cut costs and help fund the program.

The printing shop’s customers include the Gardena police and fire departments, along with Torrance-based Pentel of America Ltd., which manufactures pens and pencils.

Pentel has been a client for more than three years. Michael Storie, manager of the pen division, said contracting with IMUA has worked so well that Pentel has turned over a number of projects to IMUA. Trainees assemble 220,000 replacement eraser tubes monthly and conduct inventory on several of the company’s packaging projects.

“Working with [IMUA] is so encouraging because I’m watching people shoot for a goal and reach it,” Storie said. “The pride they feel in the jobs they do is much greater than college graduates, and that pride is a contagious thing.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Beat

Today’s centerpiece focuses on the Independent Management Unlimited Achievement training program, founded by Jane and Richard Sunahara to help people with special needs get job training. To get involved or make a donation to the organization, call (310) 217-8186.