TIMES Center
Possible TIMES Center Projects
The TIMES Center section of LINC offers a great opportunity to develop your problem solving and brainstorming skills. A major challenge of the TIMES Center’s Transitional Initiatives program is to provide relevant and useful opportunities for employment training, home-based business development, and exploration of entrepreneurial possibilities. Many of the transitional housing residents must live on disability payments alone and a home-based business could supplement their income so that they could really achieve some form of independence. Additionally, many of the TIMES Center residents, do not mainstream well and have great difficulty performing on a regular day-to-day job, work for minimum wage without benefits, or are only marginally employed. Historically, shelters have promoted labor intensive jobs that provide little opportunity for self-actualization, create no excitement or ownership, require no imagination, no appreciable skill, are tedious, boring and produce only a survival income.The transitional program at the TIMES Center is very eager to develop viable traditional and non-traditional vocational opportunities for participants with significant barriers. Although the TIMES Center has developed some ideas, they are open to many more.
Past LINC Projects
The Spring, 2003 LINC team wrote business plan for the creation of the following three business ideas.
- A cat furniture manufacturing and retail business that could start as a sheltered workshop and translate to home-based businesses with some type of cooperative marketing.
- A mobile drive up coffee chain modeled on Dutch Bros’ Oregon coffee chain that uses self-contained trailers with drive-up windows on two sides to sell espresso type coffee and breakfast items. Residents and program graduates could be employed at the trailer sites or in baking the breakfast items sold
- A mobile car detailing business that would provide convenient service to customers by detailing cars at their home or workplace.
The Spring 2004 LINC team implemented the mobile car detailing business, wrote a grant for additional monies to the Orange Crush Foundation, and saw their business adopted by the Urbana Adult Education Program.
The Spring 2005 TIMES Center LINC team is working on identifying internship opportunities in the community for the men at the TIMES Center which will give them meaningful work and satisfy the 10-hour/week community service requirement the men must demonstrate.
Future LINC ProjectsIn all of these cases, a LINC team would work with the shelter to build and equip whatever vocational ideas decided upon, provide training for worker, assist in operating the business producing “profits” to create more business opportunities, more jobs, more available programming, etc. The first day of class, TIMES Center representatives will share with you more completely the needs and goals of the TIMES Center and the opportunities for project participation.
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