Keizertimes., August 03, 2018, Page A8, Image 8

PAGE A8, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 3, 2018
SPARROW: Store offers
retraining, life skills
(Continued from Page A1)
If you’re a refugee in the
Salem-Keizer
area,
Luke
Glaze might have an answer:
Sparrow Furniture, the new
social business he manages on
Broadway Street.
“We hire refugees who are
being resettled in Salem and give
them the opportunity to work
in an environment that’s much
more conducive to settling in
a new place,” Glaze said. “So
we provide language training
and some cultural acquisition,
so they can get on their feet
while they’re providing for their
family.”
Sparrow
Furniture
is
dedicated to hiring and training
refugees in woodworking and
customer service skills. Glaze,
who also manages Broadway
Coffeehouse in Salem, took
on the Sparrow Furniture
initiative two years ago because
he believes people who come
to the U.S. as refugees deserve a
second chance at success.
Sparrow Furniture’s soft
opening took place on Friday,
July 20, with a grand opening
planned for September. The
woodworking workshop has
been operational for six months,
and over the course of that
time the business has hired fi ve
refugees from fi ve countries:
Democratic
Republic
of
Congo, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast,
Pakistan, and Syria.
The furniture they work
on is often donated, and much
of the work is refi nishing,
but the employees also work
on original designs as well.
Now that the showroom is
operational, employees are also
getting experience in customer
service as showroom managers,
interacting with customers and
making sales.
In addition to work skills,
Sparrow employees receive
English lessons from Mid-Valley
Literacy Center, driving lessons
in the delivery van, and will
soon begin job development
classes in resume building and
interview skills
with ResCare.
S p a r r ow
Furniture pays
its employees
for
their
time in these
classes,
so
they can build
the necessary
skills to move
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
on to other
e m p l oy m e n t Inside the Sparrow workshop where furniture is
opportunities refurbished and original artwork is assembled.
12
to
24
months after starting at Sparrow. Africa, before being resettled in
The Sparrow Furniture the United States.
In West Africa, she was
model is designed to be
a
businesswoman
and
temporary, but in a way that
entrepreneur.
facilitates future success at the
“I did things like clothing,
end of that one- to two-year
jewelry,
things like that,” she
period.
said.
“I
love
business and I just
Glaze’s approach to Sparrow
want
to
be
a businesswoman
Furniture is infl uenced by his
time managing a different social here in the United States.”
She gestures toward a wall
business in Jordan. “I think the
full
of woodworking projects,
biggest part was the model we
painted
in bright colors.
tried to do in Jordan was also to
“I can make this. I never did
have people come through and
use it as a launching pad, and this in my life. I’ve just been
what happened is we created a here for a month and I can
great place to work, so a lot of make this, and I love it,” she said.
people didn’t want to leave. This She added: “I feel like I’m just
was fi nding ways to incentivize happy, because they are so ready
that process and make it known to help us to learn more.”
Glaze speaks highly of
from day one that that’s our
goal,” Glaze said. “We’re not Blandine, her creativity and
looking for just a clean break, ambition. But as far as Sparrow
but maybe they’re moving into Furniture’s employees go,
an internship to start, so they Blandine is unique. Other
could still be working here Sparrow employees have other
while they’re getting familiar challenges and barriers to
with another company and employment aside from their
then transition. We’ve kept our refugee status.
“We didn’t start with the
wages at a specifi c place because
easiest
refugee candidates. When
we want them to know there’s
we
were
fi rst doing our initial
more out there.” For more
round
of
hiring,
we looked and
information about how Glaze’s
past work in the Middle East we were like, ‘Guys, if we choose
has infl uenced his current work who we want to choose, we
think this is going to be really
with Sparrow, see sidebar.
Blandine has worked at hard,’” he said. For example:
Sparrow Furniture for one “One of our employees is deaf,
month. She’s a refugee from we have another employee
Ivory Coast, a country wracked who experienced homelessness
by land disputes and a brief for a number of years after he
civil war back in 2011. She resettled here in the U.S.”
But the adaptivity of the
left her country fi ve years ago
Sparrow
model means the
and stayed in Togo, also in West
business can help people for
whom the deck is stacked in the
wrong direction.
“This is a business that can
help Blandine who speaks
pretty good English already,
is an entrepreneur, will fi nd a
way to make an income here
in this country, but it also helps
someone when there’s probably
no other place for them other
than Sparrow,” Glaze said.
To get involved, visit
sparrowfurniture.org.
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
Luke Glaze (right), manager of Sparrow Furniture discusses a potential sale with a customer.
Glaze grew up in Keizer and graduated from McNary High School.
McNary alum leads
Salem social business
tion.” That employee is in the
By CASEY CHAFFIN
process of learning how to read
Keizertimes intern
Luke Glaze, a 2003 McNary and write in English, as well as
High School graduate, spent learning American Sign Lan-
several years managing a social guage.
But Glaze’s interest in cross-
business centered around recy-
cling in Jordan. His time there cultural exchange goes beyond
has informed his approaches even his years spent in Jordan.
“Most of my life I was al-
to working with the refugee
community at Sparrow Furni- ways drawn to the differences
in culture. That
ture, sometimes
was always ex-
in ways he
citing to meet
didn’t expect.
someone who
For exam-
had a different
ple, language
background. In
barriers are dif-
high school, I
fi cult in work-
knew I wanted
ing with peo-
to work over-
ple who come
from
some-
— Luke Glaze seas, so that’s
when I started
where
else.
traveling a lot,
One
might
think the conversational Arabic in summers I spent a lot of
Glaze picked up in the Middle time in Mexico, the Domini-
East would come in handy— can Republic,” he said. After
but it ended up being a bit his experiences in high school,
he studied cultural anthropol-
more complicated than that.
“Unfortunately, one of our ogy in college.
But he didn’t always have
employees that comes from a
region that has the same Arabic to travel to fi nd cross-cultural
that I speak is deaf,” Luke said. experiences.
“I always like to say, espe-
“I’ll speak to him in Arabic of-
ten and he’ll read my lips, so cially in Salem and Keizer, di-
that’s helpful in communica- versity is everywhere, you just
“Often
we stay
somewhat
segregated.”
have to look for it. Even at
McNary, you could go through
the halls and miss it, but if you
paid attention you could easily
make connections.” He cites
the area’s Russian population,
as well as its growing Hispanic
and Pacifi c Islander communi-
ties as examples of hidden di-
versity.
“They’re there, but often we
stay somewhat segregated in
our community, and that’s one
thing that’s important to me is
desegregating that,” he said.
And now, that’s a key goal in
welcoming refugees to Salem:
not just allowing them to live
in the community, but inte-
grating them into the fabric of
the community.
“It doesn’t matter what
their political beliefs are, if you
really think about it you can
have a political view of immi-
gration or refugee resettlement
that wants to limit it, but once
they’re here in our community,
you’d be foolish to not want to
accept them and love them and
make them part of the com-
munity, because it would just
ostracize them if you don’t,”
Glaze said.
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