Introduction

I have discovered that to invest everything including ones dreams, hopes, and great amounts of personal time to a cause can indeed result in success if it's not about greed. Many thousands know Compassionate Integrations (C.I) by the Humboldt Candles autism and developmental disability employment project. No one I don't suspect ever imagined the simple soybean candles for employment would ever result in a human diversity project now known as Humboldt Includes. Yet since the beginning and for a few years now in concept behind the scenes Humboldt Includes was born and with it the employment projects true ambitions are available for everyone to see.

Humboldt Includes

Humboldt Includes is a very simple concept that seeks to entice local area businesses to sponsor transitional skills development for adults transitioning out of high school and older adults that many times have yet to be given a chance. Working with area developmental disability agencies Compassionate Integrations (C.I) has energetically formulated what is believed to be the first ever county-wide civil rights inclusion project of its kind. Inspired by the State of California's "We Include" campaign Humboldt Includes is creating an active agent of community awareness, mechanism of sponsored skills development and integrative employment sponsorship.

Several sponsors came on board in the first few months with the help of a local agency I used to cover in media as a reporter. Reaching For Independence of Fortuna California in the past five years has worked hard to create a name for itself and to represent employment inclusion for individuals with developmental disabilities. It is with this agency the Humboldt Includes project is conducting its first awareness experiments with the help of Bi-coastal Radio who year around provides free awareness for just about anything Compassionate Integrations creatively endeavors to do.

Into 2012 new sponsors will be recognized and more Humboldt Includes door and window stickers will go up at local area businesses. Saturating most of Fortuna California the candle project some suspect is nearly a house hold name seeks to do so elsewhere. Eureka California brings in nearly as many sales but awareness has not been targeted there yet other than radio networks and media exposure from time to time. Compassionate Integrations while creating awareness for Humboldt Includes is hand making 30,000 free small candles inside awareness packs to be distributed in Eureka California to increase candle jobs and to make awareness of Humboldt Includes. By joining together the Humboldt Includes idea with Humboldt Candles which is a known disability work project awareness of the inclusion and opportunity methods can be uniquely and efficiently produced.

National Expansion

It has always been surprising to me the success of the candle making project. I've poured thousands of candles myself after it was in the front pages of newspapers. Now others have that responsability and that was the goal. The feasibility of employment I believe is increased by going national with the candle making. Folks outside of the county, state and even country have contacted the project seeking our work program candles where they live and until now they have been declined.

National expansion is made possible with a loan by The Humboldt County Access and Resource Center (HCAR) for the Autism Candles project made available by federal grant provided to them to issue loans to disability minority group businesses. Compassionate Integrations was issued a $3,800 micro loan which is nearly four times the maximum amount to purchase new equipment which increased the production capacity by eight to ten fold. C.I has also acquired AutismCandles.com so to expand to a additional brand name.

Autism Candles appropriately and effectively represents candle making opportunity for individuals diagnosed with autism but also other developmental disabilities. It is hoped to also work with fundraisers and businesses in general to expand this opportunity outside of Humboldt County while spreading the message within the product about inclusion. The Autism Candles project is set to debut first quarter of 2012 and growth will be controlled to assure demand can be kept up with. No significant marketing will take place as word of mouth historicaly has created significant enough demand. People can and do support equal opportunity projects including candle making.

Sincerely,

Nathan Young