Russ: This is The BusinessMakers show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. It's guest time on the show, and we have a make-it-happen, not-for-profit, real cool business feature today. I'm talking about the H.E.A.R.T. organization, and with me now is the founder and executive director of H.E.A.R.T., Jane Cummins. Jane, welcome to the BusinessMakers show.

Jane: Thank you for having me, Russ.

Russ: It's great to have you here, and why don't you start by telling us about H.E.A.R.T.?

Jane: Sure. Well, H.E.A.R.T. is 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, and our mission is to work adults who have developmental disabilities. We provide education, job training and jobs to adults with special needs.

Russ: Okay. What kind of jobs?

Jane: Well, we focus on two types of jobs. We focus on vending machines and concession stands, and through those jobs, our participants are able to learn everything from inventory control to customer service, to cash handling, to everything that you would need to know to be in a small business environment.

Russ: Okay. On the vending machine side, does that mean that they work for vending machine companies?

Jane: Well, they can, but very few vending machine companies will hire someone with a developmental disability. Many times, their transportation options are limited, their reading or math might be limited, and so you're trusting these individuals with your product, with the money that goes into the machines. So, what we've found is a better fit for this population is to actually create a vending machine enterprise as part of our nonprofit organization, and we use that to employ the individuals that we've trained.

Russ: Okay. Well, we like people here on the BusinessMakers show that start businesses, so what you're telling me is that H.E.A.R.T. has its own vending machine company?

Jane: Basically, we do. We started it in 2006, and we grew to about a dozen vending machines in the first couple of years, and then last year we grew to another 40 machines. We now have over 60 machines in the Greater Houston area.

Russ: Wow. That's impressive. Now, describe these people that work for you, the adults with disabilities. I mean there are certainly some with disabilities that are probably too significant to be able to work.

Jane: Well, yes and no. We don't turn anyone away, so with our program - again, it's a nonprofit organization - we have the mindset that if someone wants the opportunity to work, we'll let them come to the program, we'll teach them, and we'll see how far they can go. Most of the individuals that we have are people who have graduated from a special education program in high school. Maybe they played Special Olympics, for example. But now, they're over 20, over 22 - they could be in their 30's or 40's - and may not have ever had a job, may not have ever done anything substantial after high school, and so what H.E.A.R.T. can do is to give them those skills that they're gonna need to be employable, and continue to work with them. And what I mean about saying that we'll take people of any level is, for example, one of our participants has cerebral palsy, he's in a wheelchair, he's non-verbal; he can only use one hand. But we were able to work with him and teach him how to service vending machines with his other hand, and he also, we found out, was terrific at reading and could do math in his head, so he can actually do some of the paperwork while some of the other people are vending machines, so he is a great person to put on a team. And I'll tell you, the very first time that we took this individual out vending, we had practiced in our facility, and we had it where he would fill the cans up to what he could reach in a soda machine, and then his team members, co-worker, would take it from there, and his co-worker was a pretty tall guy. And, when we got to the site the very first day, when he was actually an employee and was going to be paid for his hours working, we got to the point where he reached as far as he could reach and couldn't do anymore, was ready for the handoff, and he wouldn't hand it off, and we're sitting there going, "Okay, we practiced this, we talked about this. It's time for your co-worker to take it from here," and he's shaking his head. You know, remember, he's non-verbal, so he's shaking his head and he doesn't want to do it, and, finally, he's motioning with his arms and he's doing this, and we finally realized he's telling us to lift up his chair.

Russ: Oh, wow.

Jane: So, we lifted up his chair, all the guys, we got around him and we lifted it up. He put one more can in the machine, and then he was fine and he turned it over. He just knew he could do one more, and I think about that a lot, actually, on all kinds of days when I think, "I just can't do anymore, I can't give anymore," that here was a guy who you would have thought, "This guy is unemployable," right?

Russ: Right.

Jane: He can't talk, he only has one arm; he's in a wheelchair. How is he gonna service a vending machine? But, not only could he do it, he could do more than we thought he could do.

Russ: Wow. Very inspirational.

Jane: Yeah, he's a great guy.

Russ: Wow. Now, you also mentioned concession stands, so there it seems like you have to work for other companies.

Jane: Well, yes and no. We sort of operate under a model that would be similar to a temp agency in that what we do is H.E.A.R.T. contracts with concession providers or catering companies or restaurant companies, and then we fully staff our area that we contract to take on. So, for example, we work with Papa John's pizza, and H.E.A.R.T. actually makes every single pizza that is sold during every single Texans game on the main concourse level.

Russ: Oh, wow.

Jane: Yeah, and not just the Texans, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, monster truck jam events, basically any major event that happens at Reliant Stadium. If you've gotten a pizza on that main concourse level, it was made by H.E.A.R.T. Well, how do we do that? The H.E.A.R.T. employees don't work for Papa John's. What happens is that H.E.A.R.T. partners with Papa John's. Papa John's trains our staff on what they need to make that booth happen, then we, in turn, train our participants. So, we might have one person whose entire job is putting sauce. They might not do anything else. We might have another individual who can not only sauce, but can cheese, can pepperoni, can fold boxes, can cook, can slice, and do every step of that process. But what we're gonna do is challenge each of our participants to do as much as they can possibly do to make that overall pizza operation run the best it can run.

Russ: That's impressive. Now, as a businessperson, I have to ask this question. Is Papa John's doing this out of the goodness of their heart as a charitable gesture, or are you actually competitive with other sort of temp services that they might use?

Jane: Well, I like to think that we're competitive, but you'd have to ask them. They may think they're doing it out of kindness. But we've never had a customer that has bought one of our pizzas who thought anything different from any other pizza they got, and I think that they're not a nonprofit organization; if Papa John's wasn't getting a value for the service we provide, I don't think they'd keep working with us year after year and year. And so I do think that our training __________ people, they're really an untapped resource in our community, and not only in our community but around the country, around the world. People underestimate what people with developmental disabilities can do if given the opportunity.

Russ: Okay. Well, how many people today does H.E.A.R.T. employ that have developmental disabilities?

Jane: So today we have 50 individuals who are enrolled in our training program. Of those, about 35 are on payroll, meaning that when they go out and work, we're paying them. We start every trainee at minimum wage, and they can earn more through merit increases and bonuses, and things like that. But the remainder are still in training, meaning that they're working towards a goal in order to get on payroll. Our goal is for every single person in the program to become employed.

Russ: Okay. Now, if a disabled person is in the program, and they go out and they make it to this point where they're earning, they literally take home a paycheck, right?

Jane: Yes. We pay weekly, and their payday is on Thursday, and so it's a very exciting day. We actually hand out checks.

Russ: Wow.

Jane: We talked about doing other methods of payment - debit cards and direct deposit, and all that - but, ultimately, for this population, that thrill of having a paycheck is so powerful, and I'll just tell you one quick story. We had an individual in her 40's, and her sister actually signed her up for the program. She wasn't doing anything all day, and she heard about the program and thought, "I think Karen would really enjoy this." So, when Karen got to the point that she was ready to be on payroll, we sent the paperwork home, the I-9s, W-4s, everything, the sister brought it back and said, "You know, really, I don't think Karen will understand this. Isn't that sweet that you want to pay her, but I don't know that she'll even know what the dollars and cents mean," and we said, "Well, this is how the program works. She's earned it. We'd like to give her this opportunity," and she said, "Well, can you just keep it as a donation?" Well, we're powered by donations, so that was a very interesting idea.

Russ: Right.

Jane: We ran it by all the lawyers and accountants, and everybody said, "No, absolutely, you can't do that." So, what we told her was, "Okay, look. We're gonna pay Karen because she's worked and she's earned it. If you decide to donate it back, you can write a separate check to us and we'll do it that way." When we gave Karen her very first check, she held the envelope up to her lips, kissed it, folded it, and put it in her purse. That was when I really realized how much that paycheck means to someone. She may not have understood how much it was or what she could do with it, but she knew she had earned it, she knew she had worked hard, and she knew that she had value, and that's what we all work for.

Russ: Great story. We're talking with Jane Cummins, founder and executive director of H.E.A.R.T. This is the BusinessMakers show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is the BusinessMakers show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com, and continuing on with Jane Cummins, founder and executive director of H.E.A.R.T. Well, I am touched by you using business, but my goodness, I can't imagine what sort of triggered the idea to start this endeavor?

Jane: Well, I'm very passionate about this cause, Russ, because I have a family member who lives with me who has developmental disabilities, and when he was in high school, I was really interested in what the opportunities would be for him after high school. And so I looked into the programs, and there's some really terrific ones, and there's some that maybe aren't so great or you wouldn't want your child to go there. There was just really a paucity of options, and none of them would give him the opportunity to work and actually earn a meaningful check, and I knew that that was what he wanted; it was one of his goals. So, early on, I decided that if there wasn't anything out there, we would try to come up with something for him, and, in the process of doing that, you know, it just grew. There were so many people who were looking for a program like this. There were so many people who were interested right off the bat in funding a program like this, and donating and contributing time, money, resources, that it really just took off, and in 2002, we actually formed the 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. It wasn't until 2004 that we got the initial funding in 2005, and February 1, 2006 we opened our doors. And we went from a staff of me, to having one teacher, one aide, then two teachers, and then two drivers for our two vans that were donated, and now we have a staff of 11, 35 part-time in the trainees.

Russ: That's impressive.

Jane: And there were people early on who said, "How will you sign people up?" They were looking at daycare models, and things like that. What they didn't realize is that this population is wanting to work, and the numbers are just tremendous. Right now, just in Houston, there's over 5,000 people, in our exact population that we serve, who have nothing to do, that are on waiting lists for programs, and the waiting list could be 20 years, it could be 25 years. With a lot of the funding for those programs being government funding - and those are, by the way, just daycare programs, many of them aren't job programs at all - and they're on a waiting list just for that. Can you imagine what it must be like to hear that there's a program with no waiting list, where you can come and not just be supervised and be educated, but also learn a skill and be paid?

Russ: Well, I couldn't help but remember when I was younger and in public school, and I had some friends that had a disabled - there was a brother-sister team that had a disabled person in their house - and I watched him as the public schools took care of him through that period of time, and then, after that, I'm pretty certain that all he did was stay at home, which is a huge burden - a burden of love but a burden, nevertheless, on the family - so that, by itself, is a significant motivation, in my opinion.

Jane: Well, whether it's a burden or not on the family depends on the family circumstances, but what I do think is that for that individual, they will need some support for the rest of their life, and they're more than likely going to outlive their parents. And so that is something that weighs heavily on the minds of the parents or caregivers of these individuals is, "What are we doing to make sure that they're taken care of after we're gone?" and a program like H.E.A.R.T. is able to help these individuals be more independent. They're able to learn more about how to look after themselves, how to prepare their clothes to go to work; that's a skill that translates into everyday life. How to pack your lunch for going out on the job is a skill that also translates; how to handle money. You know, vending machines are full of cash money, that's what's in them, so they're gonna handle every day coins and know how to make change, and handle dollar bills, and things like that, that they're not exposed to in schools because schools don't hand out real money. And so all of these skills that we're teaching at H.E.A.R.T. are things that will hopefully empower these individuals for the future, as well.

Russ: Okay. Now, I understand that it was clearly the vending machine path which is where you first said, "Okay, this is gonna be a business we're gonna do." Tell us how that actually started.

Jane: Well, sure. So, initially, we were gonna be a vending machine training program. We had a lot of research and data that would support that these individuals, this was a skill they could learn and we could teach it, and we had special education teachers, we commissioned a curriculum about vending machines and the repetitive nature of it. For some individuals, it's the red can goes here, the green can goes there; others can do all aspects of it - service the machines, take the coins out and so on, make deposits, take them to the bank - so we knew we could teach that. What we didn't expect was that absolutely no vending company would hire them. The big companies wouldn't hire them, the small companies wouldn't hire them, and so we had this warehouse of people who were well trained and ready to vend, and nowhere for them to vend, and not to be discouraged, of course what we did was what anyone would do, right? We called Coke and asked them to donate a couple machines. We put them in our facility, and I became the biggest customer. I probably drank eight Cokes a day, as my dentist told me just a few months after, just to make the product move so that they would have something to service, and lo and behold, they made a little bit of money, and we realized, "Wow, we got enough money off of this to not only pay these guys, but replenish the product, do some repairs, make them a little nicer," and we thought, "Well, let's do a couple more." And so, over time, we grew to having about 12, and then last year the Houston Endowment, which is a large grant-maker here in Houston, gave us a grant of $250,000.00, which was enough for us to expand into 40 more machines.

Russ: Wow. How did you win that first placement of the first machine in a commercial establishment?

Jane: Sure. Well, our very first machines were all what we called friendly businesses at that time. They were people who, let's say, someone on our board of directors had a business and said, "I'll take a machine." It could have been a family member of one of our participants who worked in a company that would take our machine. And another type of vending customer that we had were schools, homeless shelters, other nonprofit organizations, where it wasn't gonna be lucrative enough for Coca-Cola or another vending company to place that machine there, but for us it made perfect sense. So, we took on those businesses as our customers, and we were able to grow by doing that.

Russ: Really cool. So, I'm curious as a businessperson, are you continuously sort of looking for things beyond vending and concession stands?

Jane: Always. We're always looking for new opportunities, especially with the number of people who are looking for work, and it's really not fair to say that every single person with a developmental disability would love to be in the vending or concessions business. Right now, those are their only choices. What else are they going to do? And so we need to be developing more opportunities, more programs, more businesses, so that they have as many choices in their life as we do in ours.

Russ: Absolutely. Are you making any progress in any categories right now?

Jane: Well, right now we're trying to build on what we've learned, and what we've learned is that we can do things that involve cash and coin, like vending machines, so a natural move from there would be something like a coin-operated carwash, which is essentially a vending machine that you monitor, and it just has different products that go in, and then also there are lots of programs that teach this group how to do detailing and cleaning, and that's something that we think that we could teach them. So, that might be an area to expand. Another thing is to look closely at our concessions model, which is really food service. It's teaching them everything from how to expedite food, how to fry fries, how to put ice in a cup and pour a drink. I mean it depends on the level of the individual, how far they can progress, but, again, we do everything from making pizza to filling drinks to making chicken tenders and fries, to hot dogs. I mean we have a wide range of things that they're able to do. So, it makes sense to look into another food service model, possibly a full-service restaurant or a franchise of -

Russ: Wow. Cool.

Jane: - some kind, you know. So, the trick with those models, or any model that we undertake is, again, we're operating this on a nonprofit basis, so no one person or group of people is gonna take home a lot of money. So, what we have to do is look at that business model and say, "How can we run our program and run this business?" So, for example, in a restaurant model, the profits would have to be enough that we could absorb those back into the business in terms of hiring special education teachers to work alongside the individuals, and having those sort of unusual costs that a typical restaurant business would not have.

Russ: Really cool. All right. We're gonna continue on with Jane Cummins after this. This is the BusinessMakers show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com. This is the BusinessMakers show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com, and continuing on with Jane Cummins, founder and executive director of H.E.A.R.T., this real cool program. I mean we love the fact that you took this on as a business initiative and these people are being good employees for you. I mean do you find that they probably continue to learn and progress the longer they work?

Jane: Oh absolutely, we see that, and not just learning their job skills, but learning from an educational standpoint, because we do have special education teachers on the staff, so we find that they can count to higher numbers, they can read more words, so they progress on a number of levels.

Russ: Really neat. Now, I can't help but think about this, too. I mean you have 50 today. I've dealt with a lot of employees and large staffs, and you have good ones and you have bad ones, and you have bad things happen, and you have to address them with counseling, and sometimes even termination. Does that actually happen, as well?

Jane: It does happen, and it's actually one of the best things about our program, because these individuals, if and when they do go to work for another company, say a grocery store chain or someone who might be very friendly towards hiring people with these disabilities, what often happens is that their manager may not be as friendly towards people with disabilities. And so they will have episodes where they may not be in uniform or they may not say the right thing, or they may not even know how to call in sick for work, right? They may just not show up, and then they're surprised, when three days later, their job is not there. I mean many of the things that I think you and I grew up learning when we were 14, 15, 16, having our first jobs, about things you can and can't do on the job, these folks have never been exposed to. No one has ever even tried to teach them that, and now they're in their 20's and 30's but the rest of the working community just expects that, "Of course you know that you're supposed to call in sick." So, those are the kind of things that we teach at H.E.A.R.T., and what we tell people is, "We're not gonna fire you. We want you to make those mistakes here with us. What we're gonna do is we're gonna explain to you what would have happened had you been out -

Russ: Wow.

Jane: You know, Best Hot Dogs, so the nominees for Best Hot Dogs were these people, and the winner is this. You know, Best Chicken Tenders, Best Fry Booth. So, we had probably about 25 different categories because, again, as a nonprofit, our true goal was to really recognize everyone and make everyone feel included, but truly, the winners of those awards earned them. I mean they were the best in that category, and then the MVP is the best of the best, and we do that not only for the Shell Open but for all of the major events we do, so we work the entire Rockets season, and we had Rockets awards. We worked the entire Texans football season, and we had Texans awards following that. We're about to do our vending awards, recognizing our most valuable people in the vending program, and it'll be everything, again, from Best Chips, Best Candy, Best Soda, Best Water.

Russ: And I assume they get into the recognition _________.

Jane: Oh, they do. They do, and we give prizes. A lot of times, companies will donate prizes, so we rely on donations for things like that and for those recognitions. I mean, obviously, we don't offer season tickets as an employee benefit, but when a company that does have that is able to donate some to us, and we're able to put them to great use.

Russ: Well, speaking of donations, I mean you mentioned the Houston Endowment, and I know for a fact that you depend quite significantly today on donations. Do you see it even being possible that someday you could perhaps run the business and keep it going off of the business income itself?

Jane: You know, I do think that that's possible. I do believe that nonprofit organizations are reliant on philanthropy, and H.E.A.R.T. is no exception. I mean we rely on the person that's willing to send us $5.00 a month, as well as the person who can give us $500.00 a month and the person who can give us $5,000.00, so that is really how any nonprofit organization is funded. Now, in our case, we are very unique because we do have what's called in the nonprofit world an earned income stream, and we're not totally unique in that. I mean, you know, Goodwill has resale shops and Girl Scouts have their cookies, and so there are other precedence for that. Could it be self-sustaining? I think it could be. I think what it would take would be some folks in the business world who have some really good experience that they would be willing to share with us, to come to us and help us review some P&Ls, look at some business models that would throw off enough money that we could then fund our operations out of the profits, rather than doing it probably your way, which would be to keep the money, right -

Russ: Right.

Jane: - and so we're gonna go about that completely differently.

Russ: Okay. Well, that's really cool. Before I let you go, though, share with us what your prefect case, best-case long-term vision and plan with H.E.A.R.T. would be.

Jane: Well, my vision, and I think the vision of H.E.A.R.T. is that every person with a developmental disability around the world who wanted to work should have the opportunity to work, and should have a job there for them to do, and should get the training that they need to do that, and we're starting here in Houston, Texas with H.E.A.R.T., with our program for 50 people. We want to grow it, and we want to serve more, we want to reach out into other communities, but there are people with disabilities in all income levels all over the world who are really looking for these programs, and these people are really under-valued, and they could make a great contribution in the workforce, as well as to our communities as a whole.

Russ: That's real cool. Now, I'm sure we've got some people that are probably trying to find you with search engines. Give them a little help. How could they find you?

Jane: Sure. Well, we have a website. It's www.heartprogram.org, heartprogram, all one word, H-E-A-R-T, program. We've also got a real neat Facebook page. It's at facebook.com/heartprogram, and then our Twitter is twitter.com/theheartprogram, T-H-E heartprogram, and those are great ways to stay in touch. I make sure that our Facebook page is updated constantly, and you can find pictures, videos, all kinds of great stuff there.

Russ: Real cool, and it just dawned on me, we went through this whole discussion without you explaining that H.E.A.R.T. is an acronym -

Jane: It is.

Russ: - so go ahead and share the -

Jane: Sure.

Russ: - exact meaning of the word.

Jane: H.E.A.R.T. stands for Housing, Entrepreneurship and Readiness Training, and I always tell folks, "You have to start somewhere. We started with the T. We're working our way back up to that H." It's a long-term goal to provide housing, as well. But right now, we're focused on the training, the readiness and the entrepreneurship.

Russ: Really cool. I really appreciate you sharing your story with us, and I appreciate you and what you do. It is really cool. I can feel your passion about it, and I hope that you can spark a lot more passion in the community.

Jane: Thank you.

Russ: You bet. That's Jane Cummins, the founder and executive director of the H.E.A.R.T. program. This is the BusinessMakers show, heard on the radio and seen online at thebusinessmakers.com.