Fresh Start Worx
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Mission Statement
Fresh Start Pallet Products employs and trains individuals seeking to improve their lives with a future in building high-quality custom products and, in partnership with community organizations, provides education and training through the Richard P. Garmany Fresh Start Academy.
About This Cause
Fresh Start Pallet Products hires and trains people facing challenges in their lives, with the goal of mainstreaming these individuals into meaningful employment. Our core values and impact are: • We offer meaningful work to enable people in desperate need to lift themselves up, choose life, and become productive and contributing members of society. • We partner with social service agencies, medical facilities, financial organizations, and faithbased resources, encouraging and supporting people to pursue a journey to renew their lives. • We address the wants and needs of the whole person. • We upcycle wood and salvaged building materials that would otherwise be landfilled to reclaim both lives and natural resources. Beneficiaries and intended results Fresh Start Pallet Products works with people re-entering society after incarceration, recovering from the challenges of addiction, poverty, other life challenges, as well as recent refugees from war torn countries. Often they suffer medically, with alcohol or drug addictions; and/or they suffer from a lifetime of poverty, broken families, and dependency on state and federal financial supports; and/or they have had brushes with the law, having served prison time, and consequently having wasted a portion of their lives; and/or those who have educational or developmental challenges that have prevented them from living independently; and/or they suffer from psychological trauma (PTSD as one example) that has threatened their ability to live normally in society. We create a supportive environment where individuals can expand their skills and support their families. Participants start at minimum wage or better and can increase their wages to $20/hour. When they finish their training with us, we support them in finding and keeping a job. In addition to a social impact, our business model has a positive environmental impact. We upcycle wooden pallets that would otherwise be discarded, reducing the need for fresh lumber and reducing landfill usage, and we even recycle the nails and metal components. We salvage wood from building demolition and reconstruction. History Fresh Start Pallet Products (FSPP) was started in 2015 after a volunteer at Grace Lutheran Church in the Asylum Hill section of Hartford noticed that people gathering for a warm meal in a safe environment were being ticketed for loitering. Volunteers built and painted benches for the church grounds, and then turned this idea into a business. Using discarded wooden pallets and reclaimed wood, we build chairs, benches, tables, and a range of other products. We hire and train homeless and unemployed people, focusing on Asylum Hill, the most transient section of Hartford with the largest proportion of immigrants and refugees. After six years in business, we now operate in a manufacturing space in Veeder Place in Hartford. We have access to a loading dock, showroom, administrative offices, and a 12,000-square-foot space for storing pallets and building furniture. And, we have commercial grade production line that is efficiently laid out, enabling us to produce engineered products to precise specifications in a space suited for the business. We are building a second, identical production line for training. Our three lines of business are: 1. Core: Our standard line of furniture, in either a painted or natural finish, can be purchased on our website, www.freshstartpalletproducts.org 2. Contract: Larger production orders have kept us busy in 2020, with a particular focus on the tables and benches at the new Parkville Market and at the Swift Factory 3. Custom work includes hand-painted art on core furniture as well as a range of wood furniture and lighting. Partners We rely on partners for our success, including health care providers (Wheeler Health and Wellness Center and InterCommunity, Inc.), sources of pallets (GKN Aerospace in Newington, Dur-A-Flex in East Hartford, and Coastal Tools and Beacon Light in Hartford). We partner with Capital Workforce Partners for funding to underwrite the Fresh Start Academy, our training program. Our purchasing partners include Parkville Market, the Swift Factory, and NINA. Accounting Resources, Inc., keeps our books.