Riverside Industries gets $250K lift to revamp production department

EASTHAMPTON — Riverside Industries Inc. is one of five organizations receiving a piece of $1 million in state grants, with plans to strengthen its production department to continue packaging products from around the globe.

The longtime nonprofit, located at One Cottage St., provides life skill coaching and employment options to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the region. Many work in the organization’s production department, providing local and national companies with packaging and assembly services by checking the quality of products and packaging them. Companies that Riverside provides services for include Yankee Candle and Scout Curated Wears, a jewelry company in the Pioneer Valley.

Riverside Industries intends to fully renovate the production department thanks to the $250,000 grant from the Social Enterprise Capital Grant Program through the state Executive Office of Economic Development. For Markus Jones, senior director of development and strategic operations, the department is where Riverside’s mission comes to life.

“It’s fully integrated, so we’ve got people with disabilities and without disabilities working right alongside each other,” he said. “It’s what I like to say, a place where we can really showcase our mission at work.”

In 1976, J.P. Stevens Co. donated the building to Riverside for $1. Along with its packaging services and life skills coaching, Riverside also owns Cottage Street Studios which houses art studios and tenants throughout the building, while also providing transportation and art services around western Massachusetts.

The full renovation will relocate the production department from the second to the first floor of the building, where the orders are packed into delivery trucks. From there shipping services pick up the products packed by Riverside employees to be sent as far as Europe, Asia and Australia.

Currently there are multiple studios on the first floor that are going to be demolished to create space for the move. The funding will also be used to upgrade the tools and resources that are used daily by members of the production team. Riverside expects to secure a contractor soon, with construction to follow soon after.

For a typical day of work in the department, employees fulfill multiple processes including sorting jewelry items, quality inspections and packing products into boxes to prep for shipping. Employee and client at Riverside, Mandy Yuchnovitz, works each day packaging products like dreamcatchers and putting orders together to be shipped.

When Riverside employee Navaeh Franklin started working at Riverside in 2021, she was originally making moisture control packages that Riverside manufactures in the department. Over time, she learned more of all the necessary tasks to package products.

Franklin said her favorite part about working at Riverside is, “The people. It’s nice just seeing clients walk through and getting to say ‘good morning, happy Wednesday.’ That’s always like the highlight of my day.”

For Franklin, after she packages the orders and completes quality control, she brings packages downstairs to be shipped, using the original mill elevators.

“They break on me all the time … ,” she said about the elevators. “I am so excited to not have to deal with them.”

Jones feels the move to the first floor is going to streamline the process, making it more efficient and safer. He explained the packaging process, starting from gathering items from the first floor, bringing them to the second for inspection and packaging, then bringing the packed products back down to be shipped.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “The idea is, we put everything on this floor, we eliminate the need to use the elevator and that’s a huge improvement.”

Part-time Riverside grant writer Alisha Seney began the application process for the grant in the spring. She said it is part of Riverside’s goal to access funding like the Social Enterprise Capital Grant Program to help the organization pursue its mission. The program intends to help organizations that open doors through hiring and training people who face barriers to employment.

“The production department is like the bridge between employment services that we offer and clients,” Seney said.

Jones sees the grant as a great opportunity for Riverside to use funding that has become scarce due to federal funding cuts.

“Cuts are being made at the federal level,” he said. “Changes are happening to policy that will affect us financially. So anything that’s in our control, that’s not tied to some sort of a government contract, we’re going to really lean into that and try to generate more revenue from those sources.”

The production department runs a Community Based Day Services (CBDS) program. This kind of program aims to teach job skills and helps adults with disabilities get employed or be volunteers. Many clients and employees at Riverside work at companies in the surrounding area including places like Big E Supermarket and Amherst College.

Jones explained this model was implemented in 2015 after a history of employees with disabilities receiving unjust pay.

“Back in the day, Riverside was considered a sheltered workshop, so there were lots of people with disabilities doing work … but they were working below minimum wage,” Jones said. “It was a piece-rate pay that they were earning so however many things they could do in a certain amount of time, that’s what they would get paid for. Through policy changes, through changes to our funding, contracted state agencies, Riverside, along with a lot of other organizations just like us, pivoted in about 2015, 2016 and we created the Community Based Day Services.”

After the relocation, Riverside is working to create a new training lab on the second floor where employees and clients can learn hands-on technical skills. Overall, Jones sees the renovation as an opportunity for Riverside employ more of their clients to continue representing more people with disabilities for years to come.