UMass Medical School’s Work Without Limits program, in the division of Commonwealth Medicine, is helping a local startup company turn discarded surgical tape into fashionable tote bags and employing people with disabilities to get the job done, according to an April 27 article in the Telegram & Gazette.
Kathy Petkauskos, senior program director at Work Without Limits, told the Telegram the goal of the program is to help people with disabilities find employment.
Christopher Bodkin and his brother Gavin, co-founders of Blu2Green, are teaming up with Work Without Limits to manufacture products out of hospital blue wrap.
Work Without Limits used grant funding to establish Riverside Community Care’s Central Massachusetts Employment Collaborative, comprised of nearly two dozen organizations and state agencies that help people with disabilities.
“They coordinate their efforts to reach out to employers so they are not all knocking on the same employer’s door,” Petkauskos said. “They share job leads amongst themselves and they coordinate referrals of candidates to employers as well.”
Through the collaborative Blu2Green found its team of workers, who create the products onsite at the Seven Hills Foundation in Worcester.