This guest post is by Becky Catozzi, Owner of Stephanie’s Shirt Shop. Becky is applying for our Supporting Small Businesses That Hire People With Disabilities Grant Opportunity ran by my nonprofit KFM Making A Difference. You can learn more about the grant opportunity here.
I hope you can support my nonprofit like I’m trying to support our community. I also produce educational videos to celebrate neurodiversity by spotlighting individuals impacted by a diagnosis. Learn more on how you can help our cause with a small donation (just asking for $3 today, equal to your daily cup of coffee) here.
We started Stephanie’s Shirt Shop with the idea that our daughter needed to have a job and a meaningful way to spend her time when she was done with school. She loves to work and be busy but because of her disabilities the possibilities that she could work in the public realm wasn’t very likely.
So we created a business that she can work at her own pace, in her own home, in her own space and feel the success of completing a job and feeling important.
We came up with the phrase “Just Include Everybody” because everyone should be able to do things that they enjoy doing, regardless of their god given abilities. Disabilities shouldn’t stop anyone from enjoying all that life has to offer.
Our mission at Stephanie’s Shirt Shop is to recognize the amazing abilities and building on the strengths of those with different needs. We are an online family business now but as we expand we want to hire others with special needs in our area. We want to be adaptive to their unique needs just like we are with our daughter.
Since we launched in August of 2021 we have sold in over 20 states. We have clothing for sale, along with stickers, and wristbands. All with the “Just Include EVERYBODY” phrase.
Stephanie has already learned how to roll our shirts, find the correct shirt ordered using a visual picture labeling system, weigh the order, and package the shirts to ship. She wants to be a part of the whole process. She helps design the shirts with the smile that is in the “O” in the word EVERYBODY. She can’t write her name so she would always sign it with a smiley face. So we included that in the design. She also makes her smiley face on the Thank You card that is included with every order. At some point we would love to hire someone with a disability that has some design skill to help us with the part of the business.
We want to be able to expand our products to include more clothing items, hats, pens, pencils, and even have our shirts in the schools to help with their anti-bullying programs.
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Kerry Magro, a professional speaker and best-selling author who is also on the autism spectrum started the nonprofit KFM Making a Difference in 2011 to help students with autism receive scholarship aid to pursue a post-secondary education.
Have Kerry, one of the only professionally accredited speakers on the spectrum in the country, speak at your next event by sending him an inquiry here. If you have a referral for someone who many want him to speak please reach out as well! Kerry speaks with schools, businesses, government agencies, colleges, nonprofit organizations, parent groups and other special events on topics ranging from employment, how to succeed in college with a learning disability, internal communication, living with autism, bullying prevention, social media best practices, innovation, presentation best practices and much more!
