Who would have thunk it? Worms! I’ve always been an “out of the box” thinker, but even I was a bit taken aback by this calling. I knew very little about worms; nor did I understand how worms would provide jobs for the least and invisible among us. Yet, the thought stuck in my brain and nagged me like a pebble in a shoe.
Six years after the thought was planted in my brain, I knew it was time to pitch the vermiculture operation (worm farm for short). So, I went to the Grace Community Center and said, “I want to run a worm farm that employs special needs adults.”
Imagine my surprise when they responded, albeit laced with a healthy degree of skepticism, “We’ll give it a try.”
It actually makes sense to me now - almost a year after Exceptional Entrepreneurs launched. Why shouldn’t our most precious vulnerable people in our community champion the lowly worm? Think about it for a moment. Without worms our world would be a dirty, unhealthy and unhappy place. In fact, without worms the world would not be fit for habitation. No one ever notices worms - the cleaning machines that eat our garbage and turn it into something wonderful and useful. Worms do their job and we reap the rewards with nary a thought.
Nary a thought is something that I wanted to change when it came to worms and employment for folks who wheel themselves in a wheelchair at work or who cannot communicate well enough to have a “real” job. Now, a year later, people are noticing this joy filled workplace where the least among us show up everyday to care for the least among us - worms. Today, our exceptional entrepreneurs beamed over their first paychecks. I cried.
Who would have thunk it!
