The florescent lights of the warehouse illuminate Key Opportunities, Inc. Consignment and Vintage Center. Bed frames, desks, paintings and suitcases line up perfectly against the store walls. In one corner are two racks of donated clothes. China, lamps, couches, chairs and other various knick-knacks find themselves carefully placed throughout the center with little white price tags attached to them. Couches are a favorite-15 have been sold since the Consignment and Vintage center opened in early December.
While Key Opportunities Inc., located at 400 North Hillsdale St, provides students and local residents with a cheap source for furniture and clothing, it also provides life lessons for the disabled seeking independence. That's because Key Opportunities' mission is to train people with barriers, such as physical and vocational disabilities, to work within their communities.
Executive Director Jane Munson said the organization has six students from the intermediate school district with severe disabilities who come in and work during the week alongside four disabled adults. Munson said retail trainees alternate in the new Consignment center, the latest extension of Key Opportunities' operations, on a daily basis, limiting one trainee in the retail center a day.
Two customers enter and flip through books, clothing and cookware. Denise Briggs, a worker at Jonesville Paper Tube, said she heard an ad on WCSR and a couple of co-workers who said the center was clean and very well organized.
In a corner sits a white Fender Squire Strat guitar signed by Alice Cooper. A photo of the original owners with Alice Cooper (with the original concert ticket) leans against it. Behind it are a pair of large wooden shutters from Detroit, reused and sold in an effort to help someone else along. "I know some people who worked here," customer Marion Bortell said. "I think it's a great thing. Everybody needs an opportunity source."
Munson works behind the register and coaches her trainees to use the equipment properly. Today, trainee Jule Collins, 41, is working. Collins has wide-rimmed glasses, wiry black hair and a scrawny demeanor. She said she has been working at Key Opportunities for a year. In her spare time she crafts macramé, ceramics and plays bingo.
"When I come to work I price and tag items, sweep and mop the floor, put items where they need to go, run the computer a little bit next to the register," Collins said. "What ever needs to be done basically." Collins' lunch consists of a Pop-Tart and Coke and eats in the bus shelter outside.
Collins said she's been searching for jobs, but has had no luck yet. She said she has applied to Burger King, Market House, Kroger's, and Elwood Staffing a temporary agency which helps to find employment, but no one seems to be hiring. She said she's about to send her resume off for a janitorial job in Jonesville, after that she should be OK.
After lunch, Collins dawns her green vest and gets back to organizing and stacking books. A customer purchases a leather bag. Munson calls Collins over and asks her to ring it up. Collins talks herself through each step. The receipt prints.
"Let's see how that turned out," she said. The bag cost $8.48.
"$11.52 and change," Collins said. "Let's see...start with the one, the ten and change. Ten, 11 and 52 cents. Thank you."
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