Gatesway Foundation opens new business, employs people with intellectual disabilities

A Tulsa nonprofit is providing adults with intellectual disabilities new, meaningful employment opportunities.

The Gatesway Foundation just opened Empower Business Services, where people can work in their community and learn new skills like customer service.

Q: What is the Gatesway Foundation?

A: The Gatesway Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities. The nonprofit was founded in 1963 and offers services including residential housing and employment.

The foundation recently opened Empower Business Services to employ individuals like Doug, who enjoys talking with customers.

“I am a people person,” Doug said.

Q: What does Empower Aim To Do?

A: Empower was created to offer professional employment experiences. This allows people to develop new skills and gain valuable work experience. Empower can employ up to 20 people; so far, eight are working there.

"We have shifted our focus and our care to individualized services," Kristina Watkins, Empower General Manager, said. “It is for the specific person to fit their needs because everyone is different and so we got focused on different employment opportunities because a lot of the current opportunities are retail and food service and things like that and they wanted something different like a professional office or something to that effect so we designed this business over a two year period of time, found some grant funding that is funding it for a year to employ up to 20 friends."

Q: How was Empower funded?

A: Empower received funding from the Oklahoma Innovation Expansion Program through the Department of Commerce, which provided $150,000 to cover the project’s costs for one year. Additionally, the Hille Foundation granted $10,000 to cover employee salaries and startup costs for the business. Watkins says the foundation is seeking additional grant funding to open a second location.

For more information on what the foundation offers, click here.