Leadership Spotlight: NDEAM and the Impact of AbilityOne
This month on the Good News Pod, we are excited to bring you a segment with a Goodwill Southeast Georgia leader who works directly with our AbilityOne program. Meredith Champagne is vice president of strategy at Goodwill Southeast Georgia, leading the day-to-day execution of the organization’s mission-related strategic direction. She also currently serves as the executive director for the AbilityOne program. Champagne has a background in the K-12 school district working with students with special needs. In her time with Goodwill, she has also held positions in Case Management, Vocational Rehabilitation, and workforce development. She serves on the Savannah Technical College Adult Education Advisory Committee.
Below are excerpts from her full interview on the Good News Pod, where she shares about National Disability Employment Awareness Month, the AbilityOne program, and what it means to her.
1) Can you tell us about your role at Goodwill?
Meredith Champagne: As Executive Director of the AbilityOne program, (I) really get to help invest in individuals, help them believe in themselves to get to that next level. I'm excited to be part of that and lead that team to the success they accomplish.
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, a time to acknowledge the importance of creating opportunities for everyone to contribute to the workforce.
Through the AbilityOne program, Goodwill Southeast Georgia is able to offer on-the-job training, classroom instruction, life skills development, and additional support to help individuals thrive.
2) What is the AbilityOne program, and what does it offer?
MC: Every week, we clean over four point seven million square feet of federal sites. We are at four federal sites (including) Hunter Army Airfield, Fort Stewart, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center down in Brunswick, and the GSA Federal Buildings downtown here in Savannah.
We have individuals providing custodial, ground keeping, and floor care services-- critical work to keep the sites nice and clean and safe for those individuals who are serving our country.
So, it is a great opportunity, and the great thing about these programs is the government has really invested in that ‘there needs to be an initiative, we need to start this mission of serving individuals at home’, so these programs are funded through the federal government. Seventy-five percent of the individuals at minimum need to have disability, which I think is awesome to help those who may not be able to find traditional jobs or struggling. We see the unemployment rate for individuals with disabilities is so much higher because people just don’t know what is available for them out there, so we need to be that bridge for individuals which is a really great place for us to be. It’s a lot of positive reinforcement and confidence-building.
3) Why is it important that Goodwill provides this program?
MC: I think as we look at the overall mission of Goodwill, it's about helping individuals meet their own personal goals. Because we know success looks so different for each person. Through skill development, through training, through employment opportunities, we work to move people to that highest level. And I think the really cool thing about AbilityOne is this is not an end goal for individuals. The goal of the program is to move people into competitive employment--and not necessarily in custodial, which is where their training is-- but for whatever their vocational goal is. It's great that we have case managers on site and with other mission programs that partner with us to say, ‘What is your ultimate goal, what is your dream, what is your career, where do you want to be in life?’ to help them get to that level.
And if you look at our retail programs, our manufacturing programs, they're all programs for a reason-- to help people. And for individuals like me, this is my 19th year with Goodwill, and I have grown within this environment, and I've grown from Goodwill to Goodwill. And I think that opportunity for so many individuals, it's not just you come in, you move on. You may for some individuals, but there's so many different career pathways that we have. It's an awesome dynamic that most other organizations just don't have.
4) Is there anything else that you'd like to share with us and the Goodwill team or the community about the AbilityOne program or your experience here?
MC: I just think it's so important as anybody's looking at opportunities out there, be a champion, be an advocate. It is so difficult to navigate where to go. So let us be that resource for you. Let us help you work through the different systems as this may work for you, this may work for you. How do we merge them together? How do we make them stronger?
Learn more about AbilityOne
Goodwill Southeast Georgia's AbilityOne program hires, trains, and supports more than 100 individuals annually, 75 percent of whom have documented disabilities.
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