A leadership team from Helen Keller Services visited John’s Crazy Socks to explore ways the two organizations can collaborate and create more jobs for people with visual impairment.
At John’s Crazy Socks, we're on a mission to spread happiness. Much of that mission is built around our efforts to show what people with differing abilities can do. At the heart of that effort is our commitment to creating jobs and hiring people with differing abilities. More than half our colleagues have a differing ability.
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), a time to celebrate the achievements of people with differing abilities in the workplace. Yet there is a stain on the celebration because the sub-minimum wage persists and we have people in this country paid as little as $0.25 an hour simply because they have a disability. It is past time that we eliminated the sub-minimum wage.
National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) always has a special place at John’s Crazy Socks.NDEAM matters because it calls all of us to recognize that 20 million Americans with a disability cannot find meaningful work despite being ready, able, and willing to work. NDEAM matters because it calls on us to focus on what people can do, not what they cannot do. NDEAM matters because we are never blinded by a person’s limitations, we are awed by their possibilities.
John Cronin and his father and co-founder, Mark X. Cronin, gave a virtual tour and presentation to the Beacons organization in Carlsbad, California. The father-son team met with students from the Entrepreneurial Class in the Pathfinder Program.
Next week, John and Mark X. Cronin, co-founders of John’s Crazy Socks, will travel to Capitol Hill as part of the CEO Commission on Disability Employment to press for the elimination of the subminimum wage.
John and Mark X. Cronin, the father-son co-founders of John’s Crazy Socks, traveled to Longview, Washington to kick off the “Together We Can” conference sponsored by Life Works (The Arc of Cowlitz County). The pair then led two breakout sessions on increasing employment for people with differing abilities.
John Cronin, co-founder and inspiration for John’s Crazy Socks, was overjoyed at the opportunity to visit the Farm Dog Bakery in Longview, Washington. The Farm Dog Bakery makes dog treats in a beautiful commercial kitchen. Just as importantly, it provides meaningful opportunities for individuals with differing abilities to gain work experience. The dog biscuit bakery is part of larger transition programs operated by Life Works (The Arc of Cowlitz County).
John and Mark X. Cronin, co-founders of John’s Crazy Socks, joined a panel of presenters for the webinar: Envisioning Possibilities: A Panel on Entrepreneurship for the Down Syndrome Community. The National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) organized the webinar.
At John's Crazy Socks, we recently added 15 seasonal colleagues for the holiday rush and 12 of them have a differing ability. We always pause to hand deliver first paychecks to our colleagues and turn that into a Company celebration. It makes people so happy.
Inclusion makes us a better business. It helps us recruit employees and, in a time, when many employers cannot find enough good workers, our commitment to inclusion measures we always have enough good applicants for our job openings.
