Brothers create a no profit organisation to promote employment and social inclusion of people with disabilities

When Kevin Szura was three months old, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy which gave him some physical limitations. Kevin worked in a ‘prevocational facility’ that provides employment for people living with disabilities, but he was feeling marginalised and undervalued. Tyler, Kevin’s younger brother, who has always been helping him, tried to come up with an idea to give Kevin fair employment and increase his engagement in the society. This is how the tkMomentum no-profit organisation was born.

The tkMomentum organisation, where t and k stand for the brothers’ names Tyler and Kevin, was launched in 2017 with the aim of creating employment and social opportunities for people with disabilities. They started a program called AbleCarts, which employs persons with disabilities to deliver groceries. “We understand that some people with a disability may need extra help with employment. But AbleCarts is truly competitive employment. We pay fair wages and set the bar high,” said Tyler.

AbleCarts partnered with some grocery stores in Nevada County and created an online grocery store where customers can select and buy, to replace the phone orders. “Once we have perfected our online grocery store software, we will launch with BriarPatch Food Co-op to open this up to their customers and create even more jobs for people with disabilities,” said Tyler.

All the revenues from the deliveries are used to fund tkMomentum’s mission, the performance of the organisation is mostly measured by employment opportunities. “With our current community-involved grocery partnerships, we have the potential to triple our current employment impact in 2019 with the support of the community. Many of these stores have hundreds of employees and the managers don’t want to have to worry about us. This is in the contract — that we are self-reliant, with our own liability and workers’ comp insurance — and I think that really reassured them,” said Tyler.

Tayler and Kevin are involved in advocating for the rights of their own employees and in the future, they hope to offer a larger variety of job opportunities. “There is a serious problem when it comes to the lack of employment opportunities. We see AbleCarts as a step between a prevocational facility and the working world. Some people need a little extra help and we make sure that happens,” said Kevin.

Adapted from: https://www.theunion.com/news/business/ablecarts-created-to-help-get-nev...

More information: https://www.tkmomentum.com/leadership