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Community Investment Profiles

 

BEATITUDE HOUSE LAUNCHES GREEN CLEAN; GIVES WOMEN AN OPPORTUNITY TO WORK AND BECOME OWNERS OF COMPANY

COMMUNITY INVESTMENT PROFILE

   

Bouchra Semlani, left, is working to become an owner of Green Clean.

Mary Kohut, right, is a trainer and supervisor for Green Clean.

Mary Kohut, a trainer and supervisor of Green Clean and the career coordinator for Beatitude House, said the two guiding philosophies of the company are to clean with environmentally friendly products and to give women an opportunity for bettering their lives.

“We are all about improving the lives of women and children and this is allowing us to give women meaningful employment while offering them the chance of company ownership and profit-sharing,” Kohut says.

In March 2010, Green Clean had 22 regular customers and was working on trying to line up more, with special energy spent on landing more commercial jobs that could be done in the evenings.

In addition to recruiting more customers for Green Clean, Kohut says that Green Clean is also looking for more women to join.

She says that the women do not have to be affiliated with the Beatitude House, but do have to go through extensive training about green cleaning protocols. A total of 100 hours of training is required before women can be brought on as interns.  The Internship is part of the 100 hours of training.

As interns, workers are paid $7.50 per hour and can then graduate to the $9.50 per hour rate paid of the regular staffers. The next step, Kohut says, is then being approved by the women members of Green Clean as a full-fledged stock-holding member eligible to share in the company’s profits.

Kohut says it will take between two and three years before the company starts realizing profits.

The idea occurred after Kohut and other Beatitude staffers attended a workshop and training sponsored by The Raymond John Wean Foundation and other philanthropic organizations in the summer of 2008. The goal of the social enterprise training was to get local non-profits to start thinking about ways of running for-profit businesses as part of their overall operations.

The Raymond John Wean Foundation worked with Sister Patricia McNicholas, Kohut and Kelly Elko to think about what types of resources they had that could become marketable and, potentially, profitable. This type of “asset- and capacity-building” has been a key part of The Raymond John Wean Foundation’s core operating philosophy and Beatitude House became a key partner for moving the philosophy to the next level with a socially minded, for-profit enterprise.

For the Beatitude House, devoted to improving the lives of Mahoning Valley women and children, its key marketable asset were the women it serves.

Semlani, for instance, has been working on trying to obtain her GED through Beatitude House programs. The native of Morocco has been living in the United States since 1998 says she is still struggling with English but hopes to master it eventually.

While Semlani doesn’t yet have her GED, she has what Kohut calls an “incredible work ethic” and desire to build a better life for herself and family.

Semlani, the mother of two children, worked in Morocco as a seamstress and when she came to the United States, worked at Toys R Us for four years. When she had her children, she quit working for several years to raise them until they became school-age.

Once her children started school, Semlani found her employment options somewhat limited without a GED or any other advanced formal education from the United States. So, Green Clean became extremely attractive to her.

“The Beatitude House helped me in so many ways. At first, it was with food and clothes. Then, education. Now, this position,” she says.

Semlani and other Green Clean staffers are paid for every hour that they work, including the time it takes them to drive from the Beautude House’s west side location to their cleaning jobs. Green Clean has its own van and supplies workers with green shirts to wear while cleaning as well as with all of the certified “Green” supplies they use to clean homes.

Kohut says Green Clean ultimately would like to be able to offer its workers and owners health and retirement benefits.

That will come, Kohut says, if they are able to line up more customers. When Kohut receives inquiries from people interested in having the Green Clean work for them, she travels to them and performs an estimate. The Green Clean will clean homes or offices on a regular basis or they are also willing to do special or one-time cleaning jobs.

Semlani says she could work as many as five days a week and often does. “I am so happy and so excited,” she says. “I am becoming an owner of a business and I am working very hard to help it succeed and grow.”

For more information about the Green Clean, call (330) 261-1584.