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PACE Enterprises offers support to disabled

Dominion Post - 3/19/2017

March 19--Bob Pirner's personal goal for the last 20 years has been to make Morgantown the best city in America to raise a child with a disability or for a person with a disability to live.

West Virginia had the highest number of working-age people with disabilities compared to any other state in 2015, according to the Disability Status Report released by Cornell University. The same report also said West Virginia had the lowest employment rate of working-age people with disabilities in the U.S.

Pirner, director of development at PACE Enterprises, is working to improve those numbers. PACE Enterprises is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1972 by a group of parents with the mission to find jobs for people with disabilities through evaluation, training and job placement.

Pirner, a former development officer at SteppingStones, has 28 years of experience working with people with disabilities in Morgantown. He is in charge of marketing, fundraising and grant writing at PACE Enterprises, all within his role of director of development.

He is an expert in the business's operations as well. Pirner said the organization served 221 people with disabilities in 2016.

PACE Enterprises' lines of business include: janitorial, grounds, shredding, electronics recycling services and food services. The organization -- based at Mylan Park -- has two businesses within its facility, the Beehive Cafe and PACE Shredding.

The organization also has janitorial and grounds contracts with local companies, such as the National Energy Technology Lab.

Pirner said PACE employs about 175 people with disabilities and about 60 people without disabilities.

"One of the things we have to do in order to provide good jobs is, sometimes we have to create jobs," Pirner said. "If we create the environment, then we are able to customize it to allow a person with a disability the maximum opportunity to be successful."

Pirner said people with intellectual, physical or psychiatric disabilities can come to PACE Enterprises through the school system, by a referral from a community member or by a referral from the Division of Rehabilitation Services. Potential clients can also contact the organization directly.

"Where we really like to meet somebody is right out of high school and we are seeing a lot more younger workers come," Pirner said. "In a perfect world, we have already talked to them and their family and they've been out here to take a tour of the fac-ility before they've left school, so the transition from school to work is very easy."

Jim Matuga, president of PACE Enterprises' board of directors, is not only an active board member and volunteer, but the parent of a PACE employee. Matuga's son Dylan came to the organization immediately after graduating from Morgantown High School, at the age of 21.

Now 26, Dylan has been an employee of PACE Shredding for about five years. He works on the conveyor belt, sort-ing paper before it goes into the industrial strength shredder.

"As a parent, you want what's best for your child and that is to have them exposed to opportunities out there in the world that will give them fulfillment and a sense of purpose," Jim Matuga said. "I think that's what PACE does."

Matuga has been involved with the organization for about 20 years. He said what impressed him the most about the people when he first started volunteering at PACE was how they looked at the work week.

"Most people hate going to work on Mondays and they love Fridays because they have the weekend, except here," Matuga said. "Our clients, they love coming to work on Monday and they're disappointed that it's Friday."

Matuga was one of the creators of PACE Enterprises' new fundraising campaign that launched in November. The campaign, known as PACE 20/20, allows individuals to pledge $20 to $50 a month for 20 months, or they can write in the amount they want to donate.

"We were looking for a sustainable, long-term fundraising opportunity that can build an endowment for the sustainable future of PACE," Matuga said.

He said the money raised during the campaign will not go toward any new facilities, but to maintain what the organization already has and to put to work more peoplewho have disabilities.

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(c)2017 The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.)

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