Goodwill Easter Seals Miami Valley (GESMV) says more than 300 people attended the ribbon-cutting for a large new facility on South Main Street Tuesday morning.
Marketing Coordinator Kim Bramlage says Goodwill had long outgrown the Kuntz Road building where the organization has been centered the last 30 years.
“We are currently serving about 15,000 individuals per year and back when we moved into that space we were serving a couple of hundred people a year," Bramlage said. "So we definitely needed the new facility, the new space in order to continue to grow and continue to serve more people.”
The new site features a computer lab to help clients with job searches and a medical equipment loan center. Work is already underway on an adjacent building to house Goodwill’s Miracle Clubhouse, a behavioral health day program.
The industrial site for the building was cleaned up with help from a state grant.
In a released statement, GESMV President & CEO Lance Detrick said, “Goodwill Easter Seals has been in the City of Dayton since 1934." Detrick added that they “are eager to open our doors to the community in an area that is more accessible to the people who need us most.”
A fact sheet from GESMV states that they employ 1,200 people, 53 percent of whom have a disability. More growth is coming as Goodwill plans to add some 50 positions to a staff of 160. The larger facility will allow the group to serve 72 percent more people than the agency did just two years ago.
