[nfbwatlk] employers holding certificatesissued undersection 14(c) in Washington

[debby phillips]

Hi Phil.  In the early 1990s, I was an assistant with the L'Arche 
Tahoma HOPE Community.  Just a little background.  This group is 
a Christian community.  The whole focus is the "core people" that 
is, the developmentally disabled people who live in the 
community.  Many of those folks live in this community for ten or 
twenty years.  The founder of L'Arche is a man named Jean Vanier.  
I believe he has sassed away.  He saw people in France who were 
isolated and lonely, many whose families had rejected them.  
L'Arche has communities worldwide.  The community is 
predominantly Roman Catholic, although the core people may go to 
whatever churches they choose.  In Tacoma at the time that I was 
there there were four! houses, I believe.  In the house I lived 
in some were four core people, and four assistants.  Many of the 
core people in the houses went out to work or some kind of 
activity during the day.  The Farmhouse is the largest of houses, 
and is really the center of everything.  Here, quite a few of the 
people work.  The only thing I remember is that they sold bulbs, 
like for tulips and stuff.  I'm not sure of all the jobs they 
have there.  The people who work there probably could not work in 
a competitive place.  They needed quite a bit of supervision.  I 
think there were some people from outside L'Arche who came and 
worked there, but I'm not sure about that.  I really didn't deal 
with that part of L'Arche.  I do know that many of the staff that 
worked there or at least several of them were Jesuit Volunteers.  
Like the rest of us, they get small stipends monthly, so L'Arche 
isn't really in to the money part of it.  They are a 
not-for-profit organization.  I'm not sure what else to share, 
because it's very different than many of the "workshop" type 
places.  I think they have a website, and there are books written 
by Jean Vanier and Henri Nouwen regarding L'Arche as a whole.    
Peace,    Debby