History of the Civitan Rehabilitation Workshop

The Civitan Club of Spartanburg accepted a huge challenge back in 1957, to start the first rehabilitation workshop in the state of South Carolina. The project's inception began with an intensive survey entitled "Council for Spartanburg County" which sought to determine the quality and extent of services being rendered to handicapped citizens at that time plus the need for further services. The study concluded that out of a population of 150,000 there were approximately 14,000 handicapped citizens in Spartanburg County. There were twenty-nine agencies serving the handicapped in various capacities. Their services were studied and compared for overlapping missions. Data results found that these agencies were serving less than 4,000 citizens. A rehabilitation center offering a complete range of services to disabled people was desperately needed. This center would strengthen the existing services and further contribute to a community teamwork approach of working with the handicapped.

After several appeals to build a workshop here failed, the Civitan Club of Spartanburg was invited by the Council to discuss the plan. No workshop program existed in South Carolina, so our pioneering members traveled to Florida and Alabama to study their programs. After considerable time, effort and research, we accepted the history-making challenge in 1958, and founded The Civitan Rehabilitation Workshop! State and Federal agencies offered tuition for each trainee in the program. A Board of Directors consisting of nine Civitans and eight members at large from the community was established. Senior counselors from S.C. Vocational Rehabilitation and an executive from Spartanburg County Council served as ex-officio Board members.

In March of 1959, the workshop was opened with donated equipment and ten trainees! The focus of the training was woodworking and the hope was that a handicapped person could be trained in a craft that might lead to placement in local industry. Picnic tables, birdhouses, doghouses, bird feeders and other products were produced for sale or order. In the first seven years, 576 people were evaluated and 270 were placed in gainful employment as a direct result of the workshop and the cooperation of S.C. Vocational Rehabilitation. Our success with the workshop led to the purchase of the old National Guard Armory building in downtown Spartanburg in June 1965 for $37,500. Built in 1931, as a WPA project, the old "Armory" has two-foot thick walls made from solid granite! The Spartanburg County Foundation financed the purchase for ten years, but the club paid it off in three!

Fast forward to the new millennium! Our county population is well over 250,000 people, we have served thousands of handicapped citizens during our forty plus years, and we have gone from building birdhouses to building bridges of understanding! The original mission was to build a bridge of cooperation between government agencies and civic groups for the purpose of leading handicapped people to active, self-supporting, productive and happy lives in their community. Another goal was for our program in time to become self-sustaining by generating enough contract sales to keep our clients busy and to cover overhead and expenses. In the past five years this goal has become a reality due to the hard work and dedication of our present Director, John Few, and his wonderful staff.

Our workshop generated approximately a half million dollars in contract sales for the year 2000 with a payroll of over $275,000! We provided employment for sixty handicapped citizens that would not have been able to maintain a regular job in the mainstream workforce. We have invested over $300,000 during the last few years upgrading our current building with additional warehouse space as well as new machinery and equipment. A 20-foot delivery truck, a pick-up truck, and a 15-passenger van were recently added. The van enables us to take clients to work in area plants and allows us to generate new business opportunities by offering on-site services to these plants. We presently provide some thirty commercial and industrial firms with a wide range of contract services. We can offer companies a multitude of bench operations (quality control, parts assembly, sorting, packaging, baling, re-works, etc.), business services (sorting, stuffing, collating, sealing, promotional packaging, etc.) and many other forms of assistance.

Spartanburg and the Upstate area of South Carolina are experiencing rapid growth and our prospects for the future are bright. Our downtown area is buzzing with new activity. Our original facilities were located in an area slated for redevelopment called the Renaissance Project. A 250-room luxury hotel, golf course, parks and office buildings are planned on the site. In order to make room for the Renaissance Project, we recently relocated the workshop and have begun a new chapter in the history of our great club! Our new facility contains approximately 30,000-sq. ft. and will enable us to offer more services and help even more clients. Plans are to add clubhouse functions such as a kitchen, offices, training and meeting rooms as well as workrooms to accommodate specific production operations.

The Civitan Club of Spartanburg and its members have enjoyed a rich tradition of community service since 1947, and the workshop is a proud example of our civic involvement. It has grown tremendously over the past forty years and provided the handicapped community with a tremendous positive impact that will endure for many years to come. It is a source of immense pride and truly upholds the ideals of Civitan. We are indeed building a better world for handicapped citizens.