WACOSA is pleased to announce they have been chosen by the CentraCare Health Foundation to receive a $5,000.00 grant. The grant money will help to kick off WACOSA’s new Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) program, scheduled to open January 2010. The grant dollars that CentraCare Health Foundation contributed will go towards education and staff training. WACOSA’s ASD program will be a much needed addition to the vocational rehabilitation services WACOSA offers to adults with disabilities in central Minnesota. “WACOSA thanks the CentraCare Health Foundation for helping with the expense of training our staff,” Steve Howard, WACOSA’s executive director stated. “This will help WACOSA become a strong member in the ASD community and serve this rapidly increasing population of adults by assisting them in finding work opportunities as well as building self-esteem.”

Annually the Minnesota Rehabilitation Association recognizes businesses who demonstrated their confidence in the ability of individuals with disabilities to be valuable employees by their actions/involvement in hiring and working with people with disabilities.

The winner receives a Job Placement Development Award. (JPD Award) This year Roxanne Ryan, a sales representative from WACOSA, nominated Sears in St. Cloud, MN. Sears hired Ric Hennek, a WACOSA client, in 2008. “Sears has been a great employer for Ric,” states Ms. Ryan, “He very much feels part of the Sears family. Ric values his work and talks about how important it is for him. After having his accident he felt like a ‘nobody’, Sears helps Ric feel valuable, and like a ‘somebody’ again.”

October is disability awareness month and a great time to recognize all in our community who support people with disabilities.

In photo, left to right, Susan Riley, WACOSA Curriculum Coordinator and Elena White, WACOSA arts volunteer and nominator of the VSA arts of MN award.


WACOSA is the proud recipient of an Art Access Award given by VSA arts of Minnesota. VSA arts of Minnesota is an affiliate of VSA arts and the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, headquartered in Washington, DC. This Washington-based nonprofit has a mission to create a community where people with disabilities can learn through, participate in, and access the arts. VSA’s name stands for “Vision” of an inclusive community, “Strength” in shared resources, and “Access” to the arts.

This was the 12th annual VSA arts of Minnesota Arts Access Award ceremony. WACOSA won the award for being an “Outstanding organization actively supporting access to the arts for people with disabilities.” WACOSA’s vision is for people of all abilities to be empowered to reach their full potential. In meeting with this vision, WACOSA continues to grow and embrace an art culture within their organization. WACOSA has introduced water color painting, charcoal drawing, sewing, music using unique instruments from around the world, adaptive Tae Kwon Do, photography, beading, creative movement and their own talent contest entitled, “WACOSA’s Got Talent”. The organization plans to continue growing in this area.

Individuals receiving services report loving this exciting program direction. Staff and volunteers enjoy watching WACOSA consumers gain increased confidence and self-esteem and are gratified to watch individuals learn and display great artistic talent.

WACOSA DocuShred received certification through the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) in mid-July. This certification is the shredding industry's most widely recognized credential for document destruction and assures businesses and individuals doing business with DocuShred that their sensitive documents will be destroyed in a safe and secure manner.

“DocuShred has always maintained the highest of security measures,” stated Beth Sueker, WACOSA’s Director of Operations. “We have 24 hour a day, 7 day a week monitoring, with a strictly controlled access to our shredding operation. Formal NAID certification serves to confirm that an outside agency agrees that we meet or exceed the specifications required to be certified in document destruction.” Many banking establishments, medical facilities, accounting firms and other businesses require the document destruction company with which they do business to be certified. “With our newly acquired NAID certification, we expect even greater growth in our DocuShred operation. This is exciting for us here at WACOSA. This certification will help us continue to fulfill our mission by providing more work opportunities for adults with disabilities, while also helping us promote the philosophy of “going green”.

WACOSA is the proud recipient of the inaugural Innovation Award (“I” Award) presented by the Center for Non-Profit Excellence & Social Innovation (CNESI). WACOSA received the award for its business recycling program. The recycling program at WACOSA provides many benefits to our community. Not only does it help employ adults with disabilities, but it also promotes “going green”, which helps our business partners capture the great value in recycling to reduce waste.

Ann Roesler, WACOSA’s Marketing and Development Manager states “Many of our recycling business partners are thrilled to promote their organization’s message to ‘go green’. At the same time, they are also reducing waste in their dumpster space, resulting in significant money savings. Since this program is free to businesses in our area, it truly is a win/win situation.”

In the award letter to WACOSA, Tara Tollefson, the Chairperson for the “I” Awards Committee wrote “Thank you for the work you do in the community and thank you for being an Innovation Role Model for the other non-profits in our community. The selection committee and the CNESI Board of Directors were very impressed with the recycling program developed to provide paid work to persons with physical, mental, and behavioral challenges, while making our community a better to place to live.”

WACOSA used the award money given by CNESI to purchase a new sign, now prominently placed in front of WACOSA’s DocuShred storefront. Steve Howard, Executive Director of WACOSA noted, “This sign further promotes WACOSA’s dedication to the message of ‘going green’, as well as raising awareness about our document destruction business and letting our community know that DocuShred is open to the public. It promises to bring in more document destruction business, while providing the people we serve more job opportunities. We can’t thank CNESI enough for this award. We are extremely honored. WACOSA will continue to look for ways to partner with our community to make it a better place for everyone!”

The St. Cloud Metro Lions generously donated an automatic external defibrillator (AED) to WACOSA, a non-profit organization located in Waite Park helping adults with disabilities secure employment opportunities. Ann Roesler, WACOSA’s Marketing and Development Manager, was presented with the AED at a St. Cloud Metro Lions meeting on May 18th, 2009. “On behalf of all of the WACOSA family we sincerely thank the St. Cloud Metro Lions for this wonderful donation; it’s the perfect gift that we hope we never have to use,” Ann Roesler stated. We’d also like to thank all of the people who participated in the St. Cloud Metro Lions Game Feed from which the proceeds of this donation came.” Automatic external defibrillators are portable devices that automatically diagnose potentially life threatening cardiac irregularities, such as a heart attack, and then guides the operator through the defibrillation process which will hopefully return the heart to a normal sinus rhythm. WACOSA is working towards one to two more AEDs to achieve their goal of having this potentially life saving devise at all of its program locations.

Malco Products has several tools that WACOSA assembles, packages, and delivers to Malco Products. On March 20th, 2009, Malco Products awarded WACOSA with its "Preferred Supplier Award". Needless to say all of us at WACOSA are beaming with pride. Steve Howard, WACOSA’s Executive Director stated “The award clearly shows that all of the work WACOSA has placed on quality, on-time delivery, and giving our customers an exceptional value, has ranked us as a top-notch solution for outsourcing in our community”. The evaluation process for the Malco Products award consists of three main features: 1. Products supplied need to be integral to Malco’s business, 2. Quality, lead time, service, and price, 3. Quality assurance, communications, shipping/receiving, and planning. WACOSA ranked above average in: quality, lead time and delivery , service, price, and ease of doing business. A special thank you to Malco Products for all of the business they have continued to send us over the year, and thank you to our clients and staff who work so hard every day to assure that WACOSA continues to be the premier outsource supplier in central Minnesota.

WACOSA is pleased to announce that we’ve had such great success with our Sauk Centre Can Do Crews that we are expanding this service to the St. Cloud and surrounding areas. Can Do Crews are typically a team of 2 to 6 WACOSA workers paired with a supervisor, who do a wide variety of tasks, either short term or long term. Some examples of the services offered by WACOSA Can Do Crews include: spring parking lot clean up, packaging services for moving, helping with auctions, fence painting, single story window washing, yard work, rental turn-overs, office cleaning and so much more. This service has been valuable to both businesses and private individuals, alike. It’s your own on-call team to help with whatever the project may be. Our Can Do Crews offer high quality work at an exceptional value. Have a project with which you could use some help? Give us a call at 320-251-0087 and find out what the WACOSA Can Do Crew can do for you!

By Steve Howard, Ed.D., Executive Director

WACOSA HAS A PROUD 46-YEAR HISTORY of providing exceptionally high quality services that are built on strong, durable relationships. It is a heritage of which WACOSA’s consumers, staff, administration and governing body are proud to be a part. The very heart of WACOSA’s services center around a theme that is central to the vision and mission of the organization: “quality”. Quality woven throughout the tapestry of the organization in every aspect of the service we provide, from the person-centered design of employment and training services to the design of the strategic plan, “quality” remains our focus, not only for the present day, but as a blueprint for our future.

As we move forward in 2009 and beyond, the philosophy and commitment to the highest level of this principle of “quality” will be evident throughout the WACOSA way. The coming year will mark the expansion of our newly designed system of quality assurance built on many of the aspects of the ISO 9001-2000 system of quality control. 2009 will see the full adoption and implementation of our new Statement of Quality Control designed by our newly formed Quality Control/Process Improvement Committee. The coming year will again mark the expansion of such things as our state-of-the art training for staff and consumers, the furthering of our “Can Do” crews throughout the St. Cloud, Sauk Centre and surrounding areas, growing our recycling program and expanding and improving our DocuShred operation by becoming fully certified by the National Association for Information Destruction, Inc. (NAID). Finally, 2009 will see WACOSA advancing our program quality by augmenting our existing menu of services to include the organization’s first program specifically designed to serve persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

In spite of the potential challenges we face in the ever-changing climate of funding at the State of Minnesota, the consumers, staff, administration and Board of Directors of WACOSA are moving into 2009 excited regarding the prospect of a new year. As an organization, we have reason to be proud of our accomplishments. As we move forward, we will continue our philosophy of embracing innovative employment and training strategies that we believe epitomize “quality” as a trademark of WACOSA services.

Other than learning the fine art of sewing, WACOSA’s 1st and 2nd shift Advanced Sewing Classes wanted to do a project that taught sharing and helping of others. That’s exactly what they did as class participants presented teddy bears, quilts and blankets to Anna Marie’s Alliance in St. Cloud, a shelter dedicated to providing safe shelter, support, and referral services for battered women and their children. Sewing students were excited to drop off their projects and eager to help with their time and talents. Great job WACOSA consumers and staff instructors!

Our customers speak and we listen! We are happy to announce beginning July 1, 2009, WACOSA will be accepting major credit cards for payment. While this move is expected to help individuals settle accounts in a variety of areas at WACOSA, the most immediate benefit will likely be to persons wishing to use their credit card to pay for shredding services performed at WACOSA’s DocuShred. We invite you to bring your shredding to our store front which is open Monday – Friday from 10:00am – 6:00pm. As of July 1st you don’t even need cash! WACOSA accepts VISA and Master Card.

WACOSA staff recently began providing modified CPR/First Aid training for our consumers. Thus far, three different groups have completed the 4 session trainings. Each class is modified to meet the unique needs of each consumer. Classes have been held in February and March, meeting one time weekly for the past 4 weeks. The groups have learned how to: • Recognize an emergency and how to respond to them in familiar and unfamiliar environments • Call 911 • Handle choking incidents • Recognize signs and symptoms of a heart attack, stroke, or sudden illness Our consumers have also learned about basic first aid, care of simple injuries, proper hand washing, broken bone splints, when to move an injured person, what to do when an ambulance arrives and how to take care of yourself after a traumatic event. Roxanne Ryan and Carrie Buhl, WACOSA staff members, have done a great job putting this training together. “Carrie is our newest instructor and has been instrumental in planning and teaching the classes. She has done a fantastic job,” Roxanne, the head instructor stated. One consumer commented following the class, “The class has given me confidence that I could help out and know what to do if needed.” Another shared, “If a person stops breathing, I now know how to call the ambulance so I can get help quickly.” Still another said, “I would recommend this class to others to take.”

WACOSA’s DocuShred operation is up and running in our new convenient location. If you have personal or customer documents that need to be destroyed in a safe and secure manner, give us a call at 320-251-0087. DocuShred has NO minimums. We will pick up your materials and shred them for 12¢ per pound, and with over 250 pounds per pick up there is no pick up fee. Or, bring your documents to 321 Sundial Drive in Waite Park (east of Crafts Direct) and we will shred them for only 11¢ per pound. Our new store front is open from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM for convenient document drop off service. When you use WACOSA DocuShred to destroy your confidential materials, you provide employment opportunities to persons with disabilities.

WACOSA is working with the Recycling Association of Minnesota (RAM) and the Beverage Association in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic, glass and aluminum in our land fills. We will also be working with local businesses to collect and recycle plastic wrap. The project is funded in part with SCORE grants and supported by the Tri County Solid Waste Management Commission. This new endeavor will generate a source of employment for our consumers in our Waite Park North Program. The jobs for consumers will include the sorting of beverage containers and pulling plastic off large rolls so that it can be baled for recycling. We are excited about this alliance and the employment opportunities it will generate for our consumers.