Volume 17 Number 3 • 2004

Never Stop Chasing Your Dreams

By Julie Hallock, Glasgow Job Service

My name is Julie Hallock. I am a facilitator at the Glasgow, Montana Job Service/Workforce Center of the Montana Job Training Partnership’s Montana Choice: Customized Employment project. Montana Choice provides funds to help Montanans with disabilities achieve their employment dreams. One of our main goals for the project here in Glasgow was to assist the folks with disabilities who are served at the Milk River Activities Center, a sheltered workshop and local developmental disabilities service provider.

One of the people served at Milk River that I know very well is Palmer Garsjo. I attended Milk River's open house during the Christmas season and Palmer presented me with a bag of shredded paper as a gift. Shredding is something that Palmer has always loved to do. I think Palmer was telling me not to forget him - he somehow associated me with employment and shredding because I used to work at the activities center. A few months later, we pulled together a team to help Palmer access funds and get him some employment. Palmer's team included him, his brother (who is his Representative Payee), other family members, and staff from Milk River who support him. Since Palmer loves to shred, we helped him set up his own shredding small business: Secure Shreds.

We decided what equipment he would need. After looking at some pictures, he chose some things and we made decisions about what we should do, how we should get started. With $1,800 in Montana Choice funds, Palmer purchased a shredder, a cart to move it around, a storage cabinet to keep it in at the Milk River workshop, plastic bags and other shredding supplies, and three secure drop-off boxes where customers could drop off their papers to be shredded. The drop-off boxes are set up at the Senior Citizens Center, Milk River, and in our Job Service office.

Palmer charges $.75 a pound for shredding, but offers his services free to senior citizens in exchange for having his drop-off box at their center. He started shredding for the Health Department, is doing some work here at the Job Service for the work program, and for the Welfare Office. He's also shredding for Go Postal, a building and office that is just starting next door to us, and he will soon be expanding his customer base to include Hi-Line Homes.

Montana Choice funds also paid for some marketing materials for Palmer. We ran a logo contest for his business and purchased business cards, hats, and shirts with the new logo. He has also done some paid advertising. But the best marketing happened by chance. He has been featured in the local newspaper. Palmer was celebrating his 50th birthday and the newspaper gave him a whole front page spread, with a picture and information about his shredding business. The article talked about how we should never stop chasing our dreams and employment is really possible.

So from the one bag of shredded material Palmer gave me as a Christmas gift, we helped him get started in his dream business.