The Verrazano Foundation

The Business of Recovery

Verrazano Careers Offers Mentoring Seminars

Verrazano Careers, sponsored by The Verrazano Foundation in collaboration with the New York City Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD), presents seminars for people living with mental illnesses interested in exploring career options. Previous workshops have focused on careers in mental health and human services and in visual arts. Planning is now underway for a workshop for people interested in business careers.

Previous workshops have been hosted MOPD, CUE Art Foundation, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, and Howie the Harp Peer Advocacy Center. Presenters have included artists Gary Monroe, Mary Bullock and Darrell Wilson; curator, arts administrator and Verrazano board member Olivia Georgia; CUE Executive Director Jeremy Adams; Art Lab Executive Director Malissa Priebe; Carlton Whitmore, Senior Coordinator, Office Of Consumer Affairs of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene; LaVerne Miller, Executive Director, Howie the Harp Peer Advocacy Center; Jennifer Crumpley, 1st Vice President, NASW NYC Chapter; and Tina Singleton, Cordinator, Disabilities Studies Program, CUNY, as well as as well Matthew P. Sapolin, Commissioner, MOPD; and Kenneth Byalin, President, The Verrazano Foundation.

Verrazano Careers empowers people in recovery to pursue their vocational dreams. Re-emergence from the isolation and economic dislocation of serious mental illness often demands, as a first step, that people take whatever jobs are available. In these first jobs, they build self-confidence as well as credibility with potential employers. Verrazano Careers is designed to support the next step, empowering people in recovery to pursue vocational dreams and reclaim hopes disrupted by illness. By linking people in recovery with mentors whose success in business and the professions qualifies them as guides, Verrazano Careers will support the continued career advancement of persons living with mental illness at a point in the recovery process at which most existing support services are terminated. At the same time, successful, influential members of the community will have the opportunity to experience first hand the true potential of people living with mental illness.

If you are living with mental illness and interested in a mentoring workshop in another field, please let us know. Verrazano Careers will broaden to other industries with high levels of interest among people in recovery as well as local employment opportunities. Email us at business@verrazanofoundation.org

Verrazano Careers is supported by a grant from the Sara Chait Memorial Foundation, Inc. to The Verrazano Foundation.

Husband and Wife Turn Depression into Dollars

Carl Blumenthal and Susan Palm are husband and wife. Shortly after they met 10 years ago, Carl went into the hospital due to a major depression. That’s when Susan told him that she had suffered from depression all her life. Being together has helped them live happier, healthier, and more productive lives.

After 25 years as a freelance textile designer, Susan recently made a career change. Always an avid gardener, she took courses at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Workshop in Business Organization (WIBO). She also joined a training program for mental health consumers who want to own businesses, offered by the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation (BEDC). Called LAUNCH, the program offers one-on-one counseling, networking, development of business plans, assistance with financing, and opportunities to sell products at trade shows.

Susan’s business plan for Kensington Gardens won an award from the Brooklyn Business Library. She specializes in gardens for terraces and other small spaces, and she employs consumers trained in horticulture at Greenworks, a program at the Ft. Hamilton clinic of South Beach Psychiatric Center.

Through Greenworks she became acquainted with the Ft. Hamilton clinic, which invited her to develop an arts, crafts, and plant business for an underutilized storefront. Susan is managing the store through its startup phase, with a grand opening planned for February 2005. In return for selling their creations at the store, consumers from the clinic volunteer four hours a week there.

Called “Made from the Heart,” the boutique is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11 to 3 and Thursday from 11 to 7. It is located at 8710 Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Call 718-680-0006 for more information, especially if you are a consumer who would like to sell his or her crafts.

Susan also does catering. She has prepared food for several events organized by New York City Voices, the consumer journal of mental health advocacy, as well as for private parties. For more information about Kensington Gardens (and foods), call 718-871-3275.

After a 30-year career in community/economic development, husband Carl made the switch to consumer mental health services 2 ½ years ago. He is a job counselor for the Baltic Street Mental Health Board, an editor of New York City Voices, and a facilitator for the Mood Disorders Support Group. Carl has been a freelance journalist for 30 years and recently received an award from the New York Association of Psych Rehab Services (NYAPRS) for his writing about mental health.

Carl is also a consultant on consumer mental health and on non-profit management. He specializes in fund-raising events as diverse as street fairs and cocktail parties.

Carl and Susan are joining forces in a new endeavor, Kensington Gardens/Parties. If it's as successfull as their marriage, they will celebrate their 10th anniversary in style.