Local Nonprofit Needs Your Support

Industrial Opportunities in Kahoka, MO needs your support. The concrete pad outside their front door and several sections of the concrete parking area are badly cracked and need to be replaced/improved. The improvements will include a ramp and a handrail. Sara Allen, the manager, is currently accepting bids for the repairs. Your tax-deductible donation will ensure the proper improvements are completed in a timely manner.

Industrial Opportunities, a 501c3 non-profit entity, is part of the Missouri Association of Sheltered Workshop Managers, and is open from 8:00-3:00 Monday thru Friday. They also have a 24-hour cardboard recycling drop-off location available. They are located north of the softball fields, at 510 N. Vine in Kahoka.

Extended Employment Sheltered Workshops officially began in Missouri with the passage in 1965 of Senate Bill 52. As of April 2017, there were 6,308 workers in Missouri. A total of forty-one employees work at the workshop in Kahoka, six live in Scotland County and thirty-five live in Clark County.

Patricia Miller of Arbela, MO, has a son who works at the workshop. She says, “The workshop is the ideal workplace for my son, Mitchell. He is not able to work at a conventional job. The workshop provides him an opportunity to earn some money, be among his peers, and get satisfaction from having a job.”

Employees work at contract work, cardboard recycling and baling recycle material, making horse brushes, paper shredding, making fire starters, cleaning candle glass, and cutting and tying candle wicks. The biggest ongoing job provides a very special material needed at Griffin Wheel in Keokuk. Industrial Opportunities workers bag rice hulls into 3.5 oz plastic bags, which are then used to insulate the train wheels as the metal cools. Workers sit around a large hopper, receive the rice hulls from a chute, and bag and weigh the final product. About 42,000 bags of rice hulls are shipped out every week.

Please consider making a tax deductible donation to the workshop for this worthwhile project. Industrial Opportunities provides a valuable service for many area disabled residents. Questions can be answered by calling Sara Allen at 660-727-2515.

Industrial Opportunities in Kahoka needs your help.