Providing more opportunities
Regional Occupational Centre Society reopens following major expansion
A welcoming storefront and a steady line of customers have brightened the faces of eager workers at the Regional Occupational Centre Society.
The workers, who have intellectual disabilities, moved into their expanded workspace in Port Hawkesbury on Nov. 9.
The $900,000 expansion project includes a new secondhand clothing shop and renovations to the kitchen and bakery section. There’s also a section in the clothing store offering crafts for sale from local artisans. There’s been a longstanding woodworking shop in the building as well.
“We’re a destination now. It’s amazing,” ROC society executive director Diana Poirier said in an interview last week.
“Our building (before the renovation) wasn’t the prettiest. It didn’t scream, ‘Come on in, we have a little store here.’
“Greg Silver from St. Peter’s did the design of the signage and other things like that so that it would be more inviting and that people would notice it as they came down the street.”
The society’s various businesses currently provide employment for about 30 members as well as about 25 others in the community. The expansion is allowing additional members to access work there.
The ROC society building isn’t located in a highly visible area of Port Hawkesbury. It can be found at 3 MacQuarrie Dr. Ext., behind the Strait Area Education-Recreation Centre high school.
Earlier this year the community-based An exterior photo of the Regional Occupational Centre Society’s newly renovated building on 3 MacQuarrie Dr. Ext. in Port Hawkesbury. A $900,000 expansion and renovation project has recently been completed. not-for-profit society announced it received $500,000 in funding from the federal government and $50,000 from the province. Work on the 3,400-square-foot addition began in April. The total floor space in the building is now about 7,400 square feet.
Poirier said the added functions of the building allow workers to gain experience The newly opened second-hand clothing store at the Regional Occupational Centre also has a number of crafts from local artisans for sale.
where they couldn’t before.
“(The clothing shop) is something that a lot of folks have expressed interest in. They want to work in different stores and it’s hard when you don’t have a huge number of customers coming through,” she said.
“The storefront provides that opportunity for folks who want to learn how to use the cash register or to interact more often with customers to improve their customer service skills. It really does provide opportunities that we just didn’t have before.”
She said they expect to organize gently used clothing drives a few times a year because there’s limited space to house items for the store.
Other than the long-awaited expansion, there was also a new roof, wheelchair ramp, flooring throughout the main level, and new windows added
to the building.
While the construction might be completed, there’s landscaping that will begin next week and continue in the spring, Poirier said.
Approximately another $50,000 to $60,000 needs to be raised by the ROC society to meet its fundraising target. The society was responsible for about $350,000 of the total cost of the project.
Poirier said a grand reopening of the social enterprise will be held sometime in the spring.
The ROC society has been active in the Port Hawkesbury area for more than 40 years and serves clients from Richmond, Inverness, Guysborough and Antigonish counties. It also opened a community home, Shalom House, in 2010.