WASHINGTON, D.C. – May 26, 2015 – (RealEstateRama) — Sun Cedar is turning traditional business thinking on its head. This small company from Lawrence, Kansas, is a response to “unemployable” individuals and other folks in transition, who deserve a chance to rebuild their lives. The company hires only those who can’t find employment elsewhere due to the stigma of homelessness or a criminal record. “We’re not giving upon these folks,” explains Shine Adams, CEO of Sun Cedar and a professional worker in social services.
After hearing a colleague’s struggles of looking for work with a criminal record, Shine decided to give him little work right in his own basement. He’d been toying with different ways to make use of scrap cedar for a while. This seemed like the perfect chance to help a friend earn a few desperately needed dollars while trying out the idea of making decorative, air fresheners out of wood. Instant success. It’s simple: scrap wood, a basement, and one out of work friend.
Now, Sun Cedar is a growing non-profit manufacturing organization that produces naturally aromatic cedar products using a zero-waste, Earth-friendly process. Sun Cedar inspires and empowers at-risk members of the community in a continuing effort to provide them a sense of purpose and restore their fundamental human dignity by offering them meaningful paid employment. Sun Cedar employs people in transition, such as homeless persons, individuals with past felony convictions, recovering addicts and members of work-training rehabilitation programs.
Sun Cedar aims to restore the American Dream to those our society has left behind. After investing his lifes savings in this undertaking, and proving the model is successful, Shine Adams is launching a Kickstarter to move to a professional shop facility and significantly increase the number of people it serves. “We’re not going to depend on donations for our day to day operations. We just need a little help to get over the start-up hump and get our products into the hands of national buyers,” Adams says.
With an estimated 12 million people with felony convictions in the United States, the challenge of finding work for these “unemployable” individuals and preventing recidivism is significant. The word is getting out and excitement is building in the community. Sun Cedar has attracted several meaningful supporters, such as former members of the state Supreme Court and State Senate, respected clinical psychologists, social activists, and other civic leaders.
You can read a recent local article on the company http://tinyurl.com/l-j-world Visit Sun Cedar’s Kickstarter campaign Official images can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/suncedarphotos For additional information about Sun Cedar, please visit http://www.sun-cedar.com, or follow us on Facebook.
