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- Independent Living: Low-tech gear for everyday use
- Vocational Rehabilitation: Deaf-blind Iowans thrive in local employment
- Library for the Blind & Physically Handicapped: Library version 4.0; Library to pilot digital magazine distribution; From the Librarian; Booklist
- Orientation Center: Building confidence through teaching technology; Behind bars
- Youth Transition: Teen 'sees' objects through tactile representation
- Business Enterprises: Culture keeps two BEP cafeterias running in Iowa
Independent Living
Low-tech gear for everyday use
By Barb Weigel
IL Project Specialist
At the Iowa Department for the Blind, we believe a change in vision does not necessarily mean a change in what you do, but in how you do it. Finding a method that works may involve using the other senses or it may require an adaptive device. Here are some common items that do not require a lot of technology know-how to use.
Managing Print Materials:Convert phone numbers, addresses and recipes into a format easy to use, such as large print, audio or Braille.
Magnification is a viable option for some but not for all. Hand-held magnifiers range in strength from 2x to 15x.
Use dark marking pens, such as 20/20 or felt pens, to create grocery lists or for writing down appointments. They may make the information easier to read later.
Writing guides (templates for letters, envelopes and a signature), bold lined paper or ridged-line paper (raised lines that are felt instead of seen) may also make writing information easier.
Finances: Talking calculators’ buttons speak, and a repeat button announces what’s on the display.
Use large print or Braille check registers to log debits and credits.
Use a check guide on top of a standard check to identify where the lines run.
Marking/Labeling items: Bump dots, adhesive Velcro and duct tape are good for labels. Place these or something else you can feel onto items to identify them. Use this method on microwaves, washers, dryers, keyboards, telephones, medication bottles and other items you use often.
Place a rubber band on one item to easily identify it from another. For example, place a rubber band around cream of chicken soup but not on cream of mushroom. This method can be used on food items, lotions, liquid soaps and more. It can also be expanded to allow identification of multiple items of similar size and shape.
Use a safety pin on the waistband of black pants to easily identify them from a navy pair (without a pin). Implement different sizes of pins, placing them in different locations of the garment, varying numbers of pins, etc. to expand this method.
You can label just about anything in the home using Braille and Dymo Tape. Use a slate and stylus to create Braille labels in adhesive, magnetic or washable Dymo Tape.
Mark 3x5 cards with large print, raised letters, Braille and a variety of other things to label food, medications and other household items.
Telling Time: Talking clocks and watches identify the time with the press of a button. Many offer an alarm and hourly report feature as well.
Braille watches have protective glass over the face that flips open to reveal the hands of the watch. The user lightly taps the hands to feel what time it is.
Kitchen items: Tactile/large print timers have large numbers that can be seen or felt.
Audio timers talk as it is set and as it counts down
If you already have a timer, consider modifying it. For an egg timer, use Hi-Mark or fabric paint to create a raised, tactile line at each five-minute increment.
You can bend measuring spoons to form a ladle so items are dipped instead of poured for quick and easy measurements.
Keep measuring cups on a ring to nest inside each other. Identify each cup according to its nesting order.
Plastic cups can be modified by placing notches in the handles. Two notches indicate 1/2 cup, three notches indicate 1/3 cup, and the 1/4 and 1 cup are identified by size.
Medical Devices: There are many talking devices, such as thermometers, glucometers, weight scales and blood pressure meters.
To measure insulin, one option is a Count-A-Dose. As insulin is drawn, it clicks for each unit measured.
A Vial Center Aid guides your syringe into the top of your insulin bottle.
Pill organizers with large print and/or Braille can help manage medications.
Sewing: Easy threading needles equipped with a small notch in the eye allow for threading that doesn’t take keen vision.
Use a floss threader (located in the dental floss aisle) to feed the thread through the loop, the tail of the threader through the needle’s eye and pull the floss completely through the eye, threading the needle.
Measure fabric with tactile measuring tape, a large print ruler or Braille ruler.
More independent living tips are online at www.idbonline.org/toolbox
Vocational Rehabillitation
Deaf-blind Iowans thrive in local employment
By Betty Hansen
Deaf-blind Specialist
“Just a thought...it is interesting to see that DEAF people can function in the hearing world very well while hearing people cannot function well in the DEAF world.” — Gil Eastman, founder of the National Theatre for the Deaf
Despite the economic downturn, we’ve had a record year at the Iowa Department for the Blind helping Iowans who are deaf-blind obtain competitive employment in their communities. So what went differently? Was it a change in employers’ attitudes? Did our clients suddenly develop employment skills that they didn’t have before? Or was it a change in strategy?
Securing employment for these clients required a concerted effort between IDB staff, employers, clients and numerous contract interpreters working together to overcome cultural differences and dissolve communication barriers.
We listened to employers’ requests for a motivated, dependable and reliable workforce and matched our clients to the employer.
Our clients didn’t necessarily have the skills the employers were looking for, but they were willing to learn, show up to work and become a positive and contributing member of the company team—proof that it’s not just competencies that sell a candidate but a person’s motivation to work that gets the job.
For this issue, we chose three IDB clients and their employers who best exemplify this model. The companies they work for are very much about the bottom line, but they also have a family atmosphere and chose to hire on the premise that diversification includes hiring people with disabilities.
All three clients have Usher Syndrome, a condition that affects both hearing and vision from birth and afflicts about four in 100,000 Americans.
Maurey Peterson, who manages a Hy-Vee grocery store in Moline, Ill., said hiring Bob King as a courtesy clerk in July has benefitted the store in many ways. Initially using sign language interpreters during the training period, Bob, 48, and his boss write notes to each other and call each other through a video relay service.
“It was a very successful thing we did in hiring someone with his abilities,” Peterson explained. “Bob’s eagerness to work and his strong work ethic are good for the customers and co-workers. Hiring Bob improved the assistant managers’ abilities as well. We didn’t prepare them, and they didn’t complain. It worked out. Knowing that other stores have hired deaf-blind individuals and are happy with the decision helps me to embrace the idea.”
Communications Services for the Deaf (CSD) in Cedar Rapids was delighted that Jennifer Keaton, 26, contacted them to interview as a case manager. She started her new job Sept. 13, 2010, and although a typical employee has a six-month probationary period, Jennifer completed hers in three months and was promoted from part-time to full-time status, working 40 to 50 hours a week.
“We have learned a lot from Jennifer,” said CSD’s Teresa Legg. “She sets a good example to the clients we serve, she has cleaned up our files and expanded our caseload. With her as part of our team, I have been freed up to expand our resources. She knows what it takes to be a team player and demonstrates a level of mutual respect that serves CSD well. With Jennifer’s help, I believe we will be able to expand our operations in Iowa.”
Jennifer has a strong work ethic, attention to detail, strong motivation and a lifetime desire to advocate for the deaf and deaf-blind community. In March, she was invited to serve on Deaf Services Commission of Iowa’s Board.
Pizza Ranch’s store owner in Monticello, Brad Davis, said it’s “still about the bottom line,” and “we want our employees to be safe and enjoy working here.”
He said hiring Rodenna Frank, 45, who is totally deaf and blind, “has so much to teach us.”
Rodenna began working Oct. 5, 2010 at 15 hours a week as a dishwasher.
Initially, tactile sign language interpreters were provided along with communication cards and a Braille electronic communications device called the Deaf-Blind Communicator or DBC. Rodenna is also helping the staff learn sign language.
“On-the-job coaching and sign language interpreting services were fine to have,” said Rodenna, “but ultimately, I look forward to communicating with my co-workers one-on-one without any interference.”
As a wife and a mother of two grown children, Rodenna found she was better served homeschooling her children through high school. Now that her children have moved on to college and their own careers, she has returned to the workforce as an inspirational team member at a company who values family.
As of early March, 1,708 people are listed in IDB’s database as being blind or visually impaired with a hearing loss.
Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
Library Version 4.0
By Randy Landgrebe
Library Director
With the world of information at their fingertips, librarians and libraries act as tourguides and access providers in an increasingly complex and technological system.
ANALYSIS
I.
“In this era of mounting complexity with more people, systems and products entwined in a bewildering web of global networks, explaining is an enormously valuable skill.”--Thomas Friedman author of "The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century"
Librarians have always been “explainers,” helping library users find the best ways to access the information inside a library’s walls. Increasingly, however, library walls are becoming very permeable.
Nowadays, librarians sift diverse technologies to explain and provide book services. Think a minute about that little phrase, “book services.” The term once meant you picked out a book, it was routed through circulation, and it then was checked out to your library record. Very little explaining was required to provide those services. The simplicity of checking out a book at the library has not changed as much as the many choices a reader faces when looking for that book to check out.
Consider the following path of a user of the Iowa Library for the Blind’s services. This reader wants a good book to read. She enjoys reading political theory, natural history, poetry, classic literature, some modern fiction, and humor. Where once she would browse a card catalog or ask a reader’s advisor to direct her to some great titles in those categories, she now has hundreds of thousands of options at her fingertips. She can browse the 21,000 titles on the National Library Service’s BARD website for a book to download on to a flash drive to play on her MP3 player or digital talking book player. Perhaps, if she can’t find a book there she will search the Iowa Library for the Blind’s online catalog with more than 100,000 titles. She could use her iPad and consider buying a book from 150,000 or so titles for sale at the ibookstore, but maybe she overspent her book budget last month. Well, www.gutenberg.org offers free classics for downloading. Oh, and there’s her local public library, which carries audio books on tape and CD. She can check out Playaways, download books via Overdrive or any of the various online audio book stores on the Internet. But exactly how does our reader navigate these myriad choices to find her best option?
At every step of the way, for this reader, there is an opportunity for a librarian to explain how a service works or why a certain book might better fit the reader’s taste.The paradox of choice is that while we want some choice, large amounts of choice can make choosing difficult, and it may even result in one not actually getting what one wants, though chances are quite high that what is wanted exists!
The way out of this particular dilemma is relatively simple: Ask a librarian. Trained to listen closely to what a reader wants, needs, and/or likes in literature, a good librarian can deftly search databases and find, in this case, the exact book for you and the best route to obtain it.
II
"We are the children of a technological age. We have found streamlined ways of doing much of our routine work. Printing is no longer the only way of reproducing books. Reading them, however, has not changed." —Lawrence Clarke Powell, librarian, author.
Powell’s quotation exposes a powerful truth: Though the medium of delivery changes, the fundamental act of reading is still reading.
Let us suppose technology proceeds apace producing truly vast amounts of digital materials—books, music and video—which are housed in libraries’ virtual shelves. Suppose also there is free broadband, and even inexpensive (or free—NLS, for example) Wi-Fi equipped reader/players of various digital materials. Are paper and bound books obsolete? Are print and/or Braille, on paper, except where they are stored for archival purposes or even for “merely” historical reasons, going to disappear? Could be. What does that mean for a library and for library users? Perhaps it is simply a change of medium. Who can predict the next breakthrough?
Libraries of all kinds understand the shifting ground that HarperOne Vice-President Mark Tauber speaks of: “You have to sustain what you’ve already built, which means you can’t just abandon everything you’re doing—traditional public relations, traditional marketing and advertising, and ways…[of providing] books—because otherwise the bottom drops out. But at the same time, you’ve got to put a whole lot of energy into figuring out the future.”
That sounds very familiar to most librarians. Still, no one has a crystal ball, and given the blurring speed of technology’s changes, figuring out the future will surely require well-trained, knowledgeable librarians. When it comes to providing books—whether through the ether, in person or through the mail—librarians and libraries will still be the key.
To whom else can the world turn expecting a democratization of access to information, to expertise and to books—no matter the format—if not libraries and librarians?
Meanwhile, libraries strive to provide to all users complete and balanced information, reader advisory/reference services, materials for education, entertainment and self-improvement, freedom of access to information, and information and services that are confidential and secure.
These library values are embedded in every library mission, and they get to the core of what librarians want to do: help individuals improve their quality of life and level the playing field for individuals from richly diverse communities. Access to books and information is a hallmark of an intelligent and informed citizenry, and a truly democratic society requires knowledge and equality.
For the Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (ILBPH) that means riding the technological crest, wherever it rolls, so long as it brings our users closer to their happiness, closer to their friends and family, and ultimately closer to the wider community of ILBPH users and society at large.
The technology is not the end. It is simply the medium through which we read the great ideas that have always brought joy to hearts and fire to the souls of readers throughout the ages.
Library to pilot digital magazine distribution
Important changes are underway at the Library. Within the next few months, some Library users will be involved in a pilot project with locally produced magazines. They will be receiving some of their magazines on flash memory cartridges instead of cassettes. Eventually, all locally produced magazines will be converted to the digital cartridges.
Like the new digital talking books, these cartridges will be playable on the digital talking book player, which is replacing the cassette player and is available to all Library users.
Library users involved in this pilot project will be notified individually when we are ready to begin. Digital magazines will circulate on a send/return basis. Users will receive their magazine cartridge loaded with the magazines that they are currently subscribed to. When they are finished reading them, users must send the cartridges back to the Library to receive the next month’s magazines.
All magazines will be downloaded on users’ cartridges from files stored at the Library. (Please note: if you are receiving magazines from the National Library Service they will continue to come to you on cassette.)
A grant awarded by The Friends of the Iowa Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped has made the magazine cartridges available for Library users. The cartridges belong to the user for as long as they are an active subscriber to magazines. However, please remember, the Library can reuse the cartridges and would greatly appreciate that the cartridges are returned to the Library with the rest of a user’s Library equipment if Library services are discontinued or magazine subscriptions are stopped.
Please contact the Library with questions about the new magazine service changes. You can call the Library at 1-800-362-2587 or 515-281-1333. Send questions via email to: library@blind.state.ia.us
From the Librarian
It could be fairly easy to lose sight of one’s real goals when technological gadgets, new software, about a million tech blogs, and computing clouds, threaten to obscure what is really important. Proper perspective—people-centered perspective—is required to keep one’s self, and a Library, focused on real goals instead of chasing nebulous and sometimes ephemeral technological innovations.
Though I daily have to put my mind and efforts toward the challenges and opportunities presented by technology, I never forget who I am doing this work for. It is always for the Library’s users.
The entire impetus of the Library’s work is to offer opportunities to Library users for transformative experiences of mind and spirit. For the past 50 years in Iowa and for 80 years at a national level, Library staff strive to make the Library a cherished resource for the user and for those who work here. Technology is only important, it is only truly useful, when it moves the Library toward reaching those goals. I welcome comments, ideas, and concerns regarding your Library experience. The Library wants to be the greatest Library you have ever used. Working together, that is happening. Right now.
Sincerely,
Randy Landgrebe
Booklist
Here is a list of recently added locally recorded titles in our catalog.
DB015351
Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos. Narrated by Tavia Gilbert.
Everyone in Emlyn Springs, Nebraska, knows the story of Hope Jones, the physician’s wife who was lost in the tornado of 1978. For Hope’s three young children -- Larken, Gaelan and Bonnie, the stability of life with their preoccupied father, and with Viney, their mother’s spitfire best friend, is no match for Hope’s absence. When the three are summoned home after their father’s death, each sibling is forced to revisit the childhood tragedy that has defined their lives. 2009. All Iowa Reads Title, 2011.
DBO15288
Completely Restored, by Robert Kerr. Narrated by David Saurman.
When Joe Murphy’s wife, Linda, spies an ad for a “beautiful 3-story Victorian house in need of some TLC,” the couple jumps at the chance. Renovating it will allow them to indulge their passion for antiques and to get closer to an earlier era. They embark upon a grueling renovation to restore the house to its former splendor, and everything seems perfect …until the morning Joe awakes to find his family transported back to the year 1909. Suddenly the Murphys’ dream for a simpler time becomes reality, one in which they will struggle to adapt to turn-of-the-century Iowa while seeking a way to return home. 2009.
DBO15301
The Drake Diner Murders, by Pete Hale. Narrated by Mark Tauscheck.
In 1992, a masked gunman shot two people at the Drake Diner in Des Moines. One of the most intense investigations in the history of the Des Moines Police Department followed. This book is based on police files, public records and numerous interviews. Co-author is Jim Rowley. 2010.
DBO15296
That’s Our Story and We’re Sticking to It!, by Rebecca Christian. Narrated by Deb Nicklay.
A collection of humorous columns originally published in the Dubuque, Iowa Telegraph Herald and various other publications. Co-author is Katherine Fischer. 2008.
DBO15260
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour: Frontier Stories, Volume 7, by Louis L’Amour. Narrated by Robert White.
A collection of 28 tales of danger, hardship and adventure in the Old West. 2009.
DBO15224
The Thieves of Heaven; 1 Michael St. Pierre Series, by Richard Doetsch. Narrated by Tim Gracey.
Michael St. Pierre is a retired master thief taking on one last score -- knocking over the Vatican. When his beloved wife, Mary, is diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Michael reluctantly agrees to a burglary for August Finster. Finster will pay all of Mary’s medical expenses if Michael steals a set of keys, one gold and one silver, from the Vatican. Michael pulls off the job, but there’s more to it: Finster has sinister plans for the keys, which hold the power to keep humanity out of heaven forever. With the help of a cop buddy and a Vatican priest, Michael must steal the keys back from Finster and return them to Rome. 2006.
To request these or other titles contact your Reader Advisor at (800) 362-2587.
Orientation Center
Building confidence through teaching technology
By Rebecca Swainey
Braille Teacher
Rich Ring is a computer and technology instructor in the Adult Orientation and Adjustment Center of IDB. Here he presents a clear explanation of the place and value of technology not only in the Center, but in the lives of blind people in general.
Technology has become a part of nearly everything we do in the 21st century. In many ways technology has meant more to blind people than it has to the population at large. Technology has made it possible for blind people to have access to printed material and numerous other sources of information that were never accessible until widespread use of the Internet became a reality. Therefore, teaching technology in the Orientation Center is vitally important to all of our students as it not only helps build a valuable skill but also helps them develop the self-confidence to use it.
Having technological knowledge and skill will not ensure employment after a student graduates from the Orientation Center; however, having no knowledge of technology might ensure unemployment.
One thing that needs to be made quite clear is that we teach technology in a strictly nonvisual way. In our computer lab there are no monitors. In addition, the keyboards have no letters or numbers on them. Our goal through this method is to help students know that computers can be mastered without vision.
Many students come to the Center with little or no keyboarding experience, so our first task is often to teach basic keyboarding and computer skills. We use software that talks to the user, so all the learning is tactile and audible. Once students master keyboarding, they learn to use Microsoft Office software and the Internet with a program called JAWS for Windows. JAWS translates what a sighted person would see on the screen to audio. The students learn on the latest versions of Windows, Microsoft Office and JAWS so they are ready for the workplace when they graduate.
Students also learn to use note-taking devices. These are specialized computers that allow blind users to take notes and perform other computer-related tasks on a device which is smaller, lighter and has a longer battery life than most laptops.
We also teach the use of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, which can allow a student to scan printed material and have it read aloud to them.
Often people believe that technology can somehow make it possible for people to accomplish tasks without having to acquire the skills of blindness. Sometimes they can deceive themselves into believing that technology can replace what vision loss has taken away. This is a myth.
But technology can, and does, fail.
Imagine a student in a classroom preparing to take notes on a lecture. She tries to boot up her laptop or turns on a note taker, and the device simply sits there providing no feedback. The student must now come up with another way to take the necessary notes.
If she is sighted, a pen or a pencil and some paper will do the job nicely. But if she is blind or visually impaired, a pen or pencil will do little good. If she knows Braille, she can write with a slate and stylus. But if she skips learning Braille because she has her computer, she does not protect herself against the failure of technology.
Technology is only one piece of what we teach in the Orientation Center, as we believe students must learn other crucial skills, such as Braille, cane travel and home economics. Above all, the most important things we teach are the ability to deal with blindness and the understanding and belief that goals can be accomplished without the use of vision. Students learn to become confident and more comfortable with their blindness. 
While technology is an important skill, without the other skills and, especially, the positive attitude we help our students acquire, the education would be incomplete.
Behind Bars
This winter Orientation Center students and staff traveled to Squirrel Cell Jail in Council Bluffs where they were able to practice their travel skills as they explored the building built in 1885. The experience also gave the students a good dose of Iowa history, according to Dave Hauge, supervisor in the Orientation Center.
Youth Transition
Teen 'sees' objects through tactile representation
By Tai Blas
Transition Counselor
Nineteen-year-old Joel Ray cannot see the details of an object. In fact, he can only see light and dark in the form of vague outlines and shadows. But this does not stop him from recreating complex items he encounters, such as a rendition of a toy helicopter, complete with working propellers and windshield wipers, flip-up seats, and doors with latches.
Ray, who has attended three transition programs during the past year and attends the Iowa Braille School in Vinton, has a gift for working with his hands. After merely feeling or taking a description of an object, he can create an accurate two- or three-dimensional tactile representation.
To complete his two-dimensional images, Ray uses a Braille notetaking device called a BrailleNote. For three-dimensional projects, he uses construction toys called K’NEX.
Ray calls these “engineering projects,” and they take a great deal of planning to construct.
Ray completes thorough research before embarking on a project. He wasn’t sure there were windshield wipers on helicopters, so he researched that before he put them on the helicopter. The finished helicopter was almost four feet long and two feet tall and weighed 8.8 pounds. “The helicopter has an electric motor that runs the gearbox to make all three propellers move all at once,” Ray said.
With K’NEX, Ray has also built a forklift and a five-foot girl he named Jessica, who could walk and do jumping jacks. On the forklift, there was a knob to lift the fork up and a knob to pull back the fork tower.
“When I was younger, I always touched toys. My brain started to produce all these projects,” said Ray, who has an excellent memory of the things he touches.
When Ray got an idea of what to make, he would think about the project for a couple of weeks and then would build. “It took me two days to build my helicopter,” he said.
The two-dimensional Braille drawings Ray creates are representations of raised line drawings. On his BrailleNote Ray inputs precise notations that correspond with the form. The results are highly detailed tactile drawings of objects.
When Ray wanted to create a Braille graphic of a UPS truck, he asked to feel an actual UPS truck. He was able to configure the Braille dots in such a way that UPS was written out on the side of the truck in print letters. He has also created Braille graphics of the Pizza Hut logo, where he works part time.
Recently, he entered one of his Braille creations into a tactile art contest sponsored by the American Printing House for the Blind. His Braille entry featured a bird house, a bird, a tree, and a flower. He is still awaiting the results of that contest.
Ray’s creations help him understand spatial concepts, including mental mapping. At the Braille School, he is learning independent living skills. There, he has a recycling collection route, which he learned very quickly. He also loves to cook and plans his own menus and does his own grocery shopping.
Ray said he hopes to translate his hobby into a career in which he can work with his hands.
“I would like to have a job where I can complete projects and keep my brain busy with problem-solving activities. This would allow me to use the skills I have learned through the Iowa Department for the Blind’s Transition programs and here at the Iowa Braille School,” said Ray.
He is currently working with his vocational rehabilitation counselor to explore career options.
Business Enterprises
Culture keeps two cafeterias running in Iowa
By Roger Erpelding
BEP Program Administrator
Remember the days when your stomach would grumble at work and you would follow the aroma of home cooking and grab a hot lunch at the building’s cafeteria? Many of those cafeterias in Iowa’s public buildings were run by blind men and women as part of the Business Enterprises Program and the federal Randolph-Sheppard Act.
Gradually, weekly lunch routines shifted and cafeterias began to be replaced by vending machine operations. Today, there are just two BEP-run cafeterias in the state—one in the Mental Health Hospital in Independence and the other in the main post office in Des Moines.
BEP-managed vending operations have supplanted the cafeterias in public buildings and have sprung up at rest areas along Iowa’s Interstate highways. Where 25 years ago there were cafeterias in the Federal Building in Des Moines, several state office buildings and county court houses, there are now 35 roadside rest areas that are the mainstays of the BEP program.
Why the cafeterias disappeared is not an easy question to answer, as there are several contributing factors. They include decentralization of government building populations, reduced building populations due to government cutbacks, increased competition from neighboring fast food and other restaurants, food costs, employee costs, and equipment costs. Yet, it all boils down to economy of scale.
Volume is the key to keeping retail prices down and customers coming back. After all, one must pay their food service employees--whether they are busy or standing around on a slow day. Over time, the cafeterias simply became less profitable.
In its current HANDBOOK EL-602 Food Service Operations manual issued by the United States Postal Service in August 2010, under Section 323.1, a table is shown in which the number of employees that must occupy a facility during peak hours and what kind of food service is needed is as follows: 10-799, snack vending services; 800 to 999, cafeteria with no grill; 1,000 or more, cafeteria with grill. None of our former cafeteria operations would have met this standard. Yet, two of our food service operations remain. Why?
When we acquired the main Des Moines Post Office in 1984, we encountered two levels of service—vending and a small cafeteria known as a snack bar to the post office. We continued to operate the snack bar, as competition increased, and the number of employees decreased. Inevitably, in 2001, decision time arrived where we needed to close the snack bar. The postal service and its employees were not pleased, and responded poorly to vending service only.
In March 2003, veteran BEP manager Monty Habben took over this facility, believing he could make some money on a snack bar, as it was so culturally important to the employees. The Postal Service was happy to give us space and give the snack bar another go round. As expected, the food service made money, vending sales increased and the customers-employees were much happier.
In May 2010, BEP newcomer Terry Brannen was assigned to his first post as manager of the post office facility. He came to this facility with a wealth of experience in food service, operating a bar and dealing with difficult customers. The postal employees had a reputation of being some of the toughest customers, but Brannen was not daunted. “I’ve dealt with them before,” was how he was prepared to deal with all kinds of customers.
Brannen opens the snack bar from Monday to Friday during two separate shifts. The first stint is from 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; the second is from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. There are currently approximately 900 personnel employed at this facility.
“The snack bar is a morale booster,” Brannen said. “The customers have a good feeling when they come in. They joke around and feel relaxed. It isn’t just about the food. It keeps them in the building during their breaks as well.”
The snack bar serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and offers specials, as well as grilled items. Recently, the Postal Service has shown its commitment to the snack bar by remodeling and upgrading this space, including a new grill, hood, lighting and fire suppression system.
Brannen began serving the second shift recently as a three-month pilot project. Thus far it is showing real promise. “Sometimes there are more people here in the afternoon than in the morning,” Brannen said.
When you arrive at the main post office, the first person you may encounter is Don at the window. I recently asked him if he was a customer at the snack bar. When he replied “yes” I asked him why. “Because I’m hungry. I live alone, and this is my home cooking. I go there three to four times a week. I know they are having pancakes this morning, but I just haven’t been able to get away to go in to order and enjoy them yet.”
Our second facility where food is served is the Mental Health Institute Canteen in Independence. We began to operate this facility in 1988. Since August of 1995, Dwain Sundine has been our assigned manager for this facility. He has hired his wife, Regina, to operate the canteen while he attends to his large vending route.
The Canteen is operational from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday, and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Besides Regina, Sundine employs five additional staff.
“If we’re here and the door is unlocked, we’ll serve you,” is Regina’s attitude.
The Canteen serves staff, clients and visitors. “Our mission is to mainly serve the clients here, but staff come to get away while the clients are having lunch at the main dining room,” Regina said.
While I was present, several staff had pushed together tables to converse, relax, and to laugh; it was obvious why they came to the Canteen—again, not just to eat.
Many of the clients have no money. They use coupons issued by the institution.
Despite the Sundines’ best efforts, sales continue to decrease. Regina attributes this to “a 40 percent reduction in client population over the past 15 years, along with about a 50 percent reduction in staff. Clients and staff have a limited amount of money, and prices continue to rise faster than their income.” The MHI dictates prices in a separate contract Dwain signs with this facility.
Despite many challenges, it is obvious that “in-house” food service is an important cultural institution at these locations. The question remains whether they can keep up with increasing inputs over the upcoming years as well as remaining competitively priced to meet customer demands.
