Gateway Services Becomes The Center for Growth & Independence

The great Albert Einstein once said, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Based on that assessment, Tami Gould can be counted among the smartest in our midst these days after making the command decision to undertake a name change at her organization after nearly 50 years of being identified as GateWay Services, or frequently simply Gateway.

Gould, who has been with the organization for 14 years now, and assumed the role last year as the new Executive Director there, has announced that beginning May 1, 2021 they will be called The Center for Growth and Independence.

Some of the earliest folks to learn of the change wondered if it was because of a merger, but Gould says, “No, we simply have expanded so much that it is simply a critical time to change a name that we have literally outgrown.”

Reality is that way back in 1972, the name “Gateway” was selected because the founders saw the facility as a ‘gateway’ through which handicapped people would pass on their way to new opportunities and a brighter future. In fact, this was their one sentence definition of the organization at the time: “Gateway is a non-profit corporation designed to provide vocationally related services to physically, mentally, and emotionally handicapped adults.”

The organization began its services as a sheltered workshop where people with disabilities would be transported to their facility, wherein they provided work to several local manufacturing firms providing the participants with a sense of belonging and purpose.

Since that time, the services have evolved. In 2003, Gateway began providing Community Living Services (CLS), provided in the homes of participants or other integrated locations throughout their communities. Those services were not job-related, rather they were designed to assist people in fully participating in their communities.

The organization evolved again in 2012, when they began providing Respite Services, designed to focus on the caregiver, by giving them a break and reducing their stress in order to better assist participants. At that time, the services were expanded to people of all ages.

In October of 2020, the team expanded their services again and branched out to additional locations in Michigan including operations in Cass, Van Buren, and Kalamazoo Counties. Although they continue to provide vocational-related services, they also provide CLS, Respite, Home Help and now, semi-independent housing services throughout Michigan’s Great Southwest.

Gould says, “The bottom line is, this is not a recycling of operations, it’s more a recognition that we’re here to help people, and only help people. We’ve outgrown the Gateway name due to the myriad expansions of services to help people.” She adds, “In the past, we were competing in the industry of people with disabilities. We were competing in the industry of production. We were competing in the industry of environmental recycling. We’re not doing any of that anymore. We’re here to help people and provide services to the members of our community and that’s it, so we want our name to reflect that and remove any doubt of confusion over our focus, or mission, and our every day operation.”

The new name, The Center for Growth and Independence is laser focused on services designed to help people in the targeted community to get a job and to help them maintain their job.

To allow that to happen, Gould says, “We help people live independently — or as independently as they possibly can — and live in a community and be integrated in the community. So there’s a huge difference between living in your community and being integrated in the community, and one of the stories that I tell some of our staff members, so that it kind of gets them thinking, is about my work with a person whose goal was to be able to be integrated in his community. So i figured I would take him to a coffee shop and help him be able to order his favorite cup of coffee independently, meaning he doesn’t need a staff member when he wants to go. He can go into the coffee shop and order a cup of coffee all by himself. He did that, and now he can order a cup of coffee, but how integrated is he in that community? He’s still not. So, there’s a coffee shop where older gentlemen were sitting and I noticed they were there most mornings and they were regularly talking to one another and sort of socializing, so I took the client with me and I started conversing with the older guys and included the client in the conversation and before I knew it they began talking together, so I simply backed away, and now he’s being integrated in the community that he lives in. It’s not just about going to his coffee shop and ordering a cup of coffee. It’s about being involved in his community.”

Over the years, the team has grown to believe that all people, regardless of disabilities or barriers, deserve an equal chance at inclusion and independence. They have noticed individuals are offered more opportunity in their homes, in the workplace and around the community, but the work is nowhere near complete, and the team is eager to continue their endless drive to help all people reach their independence and personal successes.

Gould says, “I think the name change describes more about what we do. I wanted a name that would provide you with the idea that we help people in the community. By changing our name, we are finally embracing who we have always been, an organization that supports the growth, independence, and well-being of all people. Now is the time for all people to have their voice be heard, by focusing on their abilities to enhance their quality of life.”

Frankly, she adds, “By changing the name to the Center for Growth and Independence, I thought it would be a name that people can recognize as helping people and that’s what I want to be. I want to be a company that helps people, not people with disabilities. It’s helping people. We don’t have to put a label on the people that we’re helping. We’re just helping people.”

Additionally, thanks to community support, The Center for Growth and Independence is happy to announce a newly designed and renovated space in Benton Harbor, tailored to primary caregivers and participants for respite care services. Alongside the name change, the organization’s email addressees will change to the domain @thecentergi.org and the homepage online becomes www.thecentergi.org. Other than these visible changes, valued supporters through the years will see no further changes.

Tami Gould has embraced the change, and freed the organization to embrace a bold new future in the process. Former President John F. Kennedy certainly understood that by reminding us one day, “Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past and present are certain to miss the future.” The newly renamed Center for Growth and Independence wants no one to miss the future they are entitled to.

Learn more at this link: http://www.thecentergi.org