About SIU:

A Little Bit of History……

Sunshine was established in 1974 by a group of dedicated parents of adults who experience developmental disabilities. Originally conceived as a place to go after exiting public school where anyone could socialize with peers and potentially participate in work at the Sunshine Opportunity Center. Later incorporated in 1977 as Sunshine Industries Unlimited, Inc., SIU operated as a facility-based model of multiple services including a wood shop that made products for sale and special orders for manufacturers.

In 2008, the State of Oregon was sued by a group of advocates represented by Disability Rights of Oregon. The lawsuit pointed out that State funded services for people with disabilities led down a singular path to facility-based services with little to no representation of support for regular community integration or employment. They argued that this type of model kept people with disabilities largely segregated from the general population. From this lawsuit, a new service paradigm was born, generically known as “community-based services.”

Under the new “community-based services” paradigm, job options available in facility settings were labeled “sheltered workshops,” and mandated to be phased out. Additionally, facility settings of other services were required to make every reasonable effort to provide services “in the most community integrated setting possible.” Requirements for service delivery increasingly focused on individualized supports.

The pressure on providers, like Sunshine, began to peak in 2016 with onsite visits from State oversight, assessments, and the expectation of strict adherence to the new service guidelines. Sunshine, at the time, was a $600k/year organization employing 17 people, fleet of 7 vehicles, and serving 60 people, heavily facility based. In order to meet the new requirements, large investments needed to be made in acquiring vehicles to provide transportation, a change in internal structuring of staff, new staff acquisition, new training guidelines, new documentation and billing strategies, etc. All provider agencies in the State were affected by these guidelines and each struggled with navigating the transformation from facility based to community based, resulting in some providers closing their sites altogether.

When news spread that some providers were unable to navigate the demands and were closing, people feared that this would become a widespread result. But SIU rose to the occasion!

Sunshine devised a collaborative plan internally to address the demands of transformation within available resources and that plan was implemented in January of 2017. By January of 2018, Sunshine had increased our fleet to 23 vehicles, personnel increased to 32, clients increased to 90, and the revenue for the first tax year came in at $1.2 M. In successive years leading up to the present, with continuation of dialing internal processes, controls, and organizational structure, while clients served and staffing remain constant, our revenue peaked at $1.6 M in the 18-19 fiscal year.

In addition to the success of our transformation operationally, we were able to continue to improve on our fundraising strategies, increasing our public support. Through that support we completed several, large, capital projects including: the building of our shop, increased gravel parking and traffic lanes, as well as added additional concrete walk paths and skirting around our shop. All of these capital improvements allowed us to continue to efficiently grow our work opportunities for our clients, and improve safety of navigability on our site.

March 2020, COVID became a new reality for which no one was prepared. In an effort to preserve health and safety in a situation with so many unknowns, our State oversight agency (ODDS) shut down services for a period of three months. Since reopening in June, there have been many changes to the face of services and restrictions for operations; most notably restrictions on how many people we can serve and under what settings. Sunshine suffered massive financial losses beginning at about $53,000 per month and gradually reducing to around $30,000 per month in the summer of 2021. At this point, Sunshine had utlized funds from grants, PPP loans, and the majority of our organization’s saving (previously dog eared to open a new location) in the aggregate sum of approximately $600,000. Time was running out.

A reprieve! In October of 2021, with help from our county level and state level partners, we were granted a variance that allowed our operations to begin recovering from the disruptions. The variance gave us special considerations for our efforts in health and safety.

That variance and the influx of two new major grants specfically for operations. This provided us with enough resources to salvage the organization and potentially find another road to success and sustainability. The first grant was from Oregon Developmental Disability Services (ODDS) was received in December 2021 for $53,000 and the second one which arrived in June 2022 from The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) for $160,000.

In July 2022, the current Executive Director will move on to a new position outside SIU but still serving the same DD population at the County level in her role as Linn County Special / Rural Transportation Coordinator. This has opened a door to new possibilities for our incoming excutive director and our organization. There is still important work to be done!