Community Vocational Enterprises, Inc.

Operates janitorial and clerical businesses as well as a cafe, all of which employ individuals with mental health disabilities.

Community Vocational Enterprises, Inc. (CVE) has worked with six Farber Interns and two Farber Fellows since the Farber Program started in 1997. CVE’s mission is to provide opportunities, training, and support to individuals with mental disabilities, empowering them to fulfill their employment potential. CVE operates three social enterprises — CVE Cafes, CVE Clerical Services (clerical placements and temporary services), and Industrial Maintenance Engineers (professional janitorial services) — helping to reconnect over 400 individuals with the community each year.

Most recently, CVE had a Farber Intern during the summer of 2006 — Tim Scheu, from The Fuqua School of Business. Denise Yamamoto, Director of Business Enterprises at CVE and herself a Farber Fellow at CVE in 2000, oversaw Tim’s experience and projects that summer. Tim worked on two projects for CVE’s janitorial business Industrial Maintenance Engineers (IME) — to develop a bidding tool for IME to use when bidding on new contracts, and to implement a new sales database for the business. “He got really into it and he ended up building us a tool that’s really helpful,” Denise shares. “We’ve used it ever since...as our bidding tool. So I feel like the projects he worked on are going to be really useful for CVE and IME and it’s not going to sit on a shelf; it’s not just a report that no one’s going to read, it’s become part of our day-to-day operations as a business. IME’s General Manager has been winning quite a few bids so I think it is working.”

Denise and CVE particularly value the additional insights and perspectives that Farber Interns and Fellows bring. “We’re so involved in the day-to-day of the organization and the business, it’s hard to maintain that outside perspective all the time...having a fresh set of eyes looking at how we run things, how we report things, how we’re doing everything has been really valuable.” Moreover, Denise appreciates that Farber Interns and Fellows are able to focus their time on one or two projects, answering specific questions for CVE that otherwise likely would not get addressed. “They don’t have day-to-day responsibilities, so they can really focus on a project. If I were to try to do the same project in my time, it would take much longer and maybe the result wouldn’t be as good because I get pulled in so many different directions, and the managers get pulled in as many or more directions, so they don’t really have the time to devote to some of these projects.”

Beyond the project contributions of Farber Interns and Fellows, CVE sees additional benefits to participating in the Farber Program. It is “good for staff morale, especially if you have someone who just fits in really well...I think that having someone here for that long a period of time who is truly engaged in what’s going on in the organization is good for the organization.” Denise believes the Farber experience is not only beneficial to the organization, but to the interns and fellows as well. “I think that it’s good for them to see what social enterprise looks like on the ground. I think this helps them realize what the reality is of running these businesses."

Farber Supervisor: Denise Yamamoto, Director of Business Enterprises (MBA, Haas School of Business, 2000; Farber Fellow, 2000)

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