The grant will help build a new Eggleston facility on Military Highway in Norfolk that will provide jobs for people with disabilities. The four-acre property at the site of the former Conoly Phillips Lincoln Mercury auto dealership includes three buildings that will house Eggleston’s mail processing, document conversion and shredding services as well as its custom embroidery service. The expansion, which should be complete in 2011, will provide up to 100 jobs for disabled workers.
The Hampton Roads Community Foundation grant will help renovate the buildings for people with physical and intellectual disabilities. The buildings will feature natural lighting, work spaces that accommodate wheel chairs and modified bathrooms.
The new center will offer “challenging and stimulating work that a wide variety of our employees can do and work which offers them personal growth and a career path in some instances,” says Paul Atkinson, Eggleston CEO. In addition to providing jobs for existing Eggleston clients, the new center will help other people with disabilities “who will be coming into a system that is already strained and struggling to find them work.”