Behind Every Bag: Celebrating National Disability Employment Awareness Month

This October, Aspire and Aspire CoffeeWorks are celebrating the people, talents, accomplishments, and opportunities that show what meaningful employment can make possible.

A job can mean so much more than a paycheck.

It can be the moment you master a task you have been practicing for weeks. The confidence that comes with taking on a new responsibility. Coworkers who count on you. The satisfaction of looking at what you accomplished at the end of the day and knowing you played an important part.

Those moments are at the heart of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, or NDEAM, a month dedicated to recognizing the contributions people with disabilities make in workplaces across the country.

At Aspire, we’re celebrating by going straight to the people who bring that idea to life every day.

All October long, we’re partnering with Aspire CoffeeWorks to introduce you to the people behind the coffee, celebrate the skills they are building, and share what having a job means to them.

Great Coffee Starts with Great People

Aspire CoffeeWorks brings great coffee and meaningful employment together through a partnership with Metropolis Coffee Company.

Metropolis provides the raw beans, then members of the CoffeeWorks team help roast, label, package, and prepare every bag. Along the way, people have opportunities to strengthen their skills, take on new responsibilities, work alongside teammates, and experience the pride that comes with a job well done.

But those tasks only tell part of the story.

Behind every bag is a person with their own personality, strengths, goals, and reasons why work matters to them.

That is the story we want to tell this NDEAM.

Meet the People Behind the Coffee

Throughout October, you’ll get to know Rene, Alicia, Marcus, and Ben, four members of the Aspire CoffeeWorks team.

You’ll hear directly from them about what having a job means in their lives. Then, we’ll take you behind the scenes to celebrate some of the accomplishments that happen one workday at a time.

Each accomplishment is different because each person is different.

That is part of what makes meaningful employment so important. Opportunity is not about asking everyone to follow the same path. It is about recognizing what each person brings to the workplace and creating room for those talents to develop.

Why Employment Matters

People with disabilities continue to encounter barriers to employment, even as businesses across Chicago and beyond search for talented people ready to contribute.

NDEAM gives us an opportunity to recognize that gap and also focus on what becomes possible when those barriers are removed.

Aspire has long made employment opportunities part of our work. Today, that includes hands-on employment training in industries such as distribution and food service, job support, partnerships with local employers, and opportunities like Aspire CoffeeWorks. Aspire’s newest Food Services Employment Training Program, for example, combines hands-on learning with paid internships designed to help people turn their skills into careers. 

But employment is ultimately personal.

It can mean learning something new, earning a paycheck, being trusted with greater responsibility, building confidence, connecting with coworkers, or discovering a strength you did not know you had.

And sometimes, it simply means being able to say, “I can do this.”

Be a Part of What’s Brewing

Explore Aspire CoffeeWorks, meet the people behind the coffee, and discover how your next cup can help create more opportunities for people with disabilities.

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