Founded in 1951, EmployAbility is a local nonprofit organization that works to empower individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live fuller, richer lives through community integration, job training and supported employment. They offer services for high school adolescents and adults ranging from the ages of 14 on up. EmployAbility was started more than 70 years ago by a mom on a mission.
“We were started by Lilla Mae Kicklighter, if you’re familiar with the Kicklighter Academy. We are sister organizations. We were started by Lilla Mae for her son. He was 6 years old and the public school system did not have any opportunities or work with people with disabilities at the time. You either institutionalized your child or you worked with them at home. She decided to go a different route, which was to get together with a variety of other parents and start an organization. Again, it was 1951. By the time you get to the late 1960s, Bobby, her son, and a variety of the other people that they had started with were now in their mid to late 20s. But they had picked up other families along the way that did have children, and they began to realize the needs of those children and the needs of the now adults are two different sects. So we split into two organizations at that point,” said Brendan Ferrara, president and CEO of EmployAbility.
Since its founding, EmployAbility has provided vital services to thousands of individuals with disabilities through their day habilitation, prevocational training and supported employment programs. Many of these individuals who have secured gainful employment through EmployAbility have been working for decades.
“We’ve got a woman who works at St. Joseph’s and has been there for 44 years. That’s the beauty of being in an organization that’s this old. We’ve got an employee, Willie, who has been working with us for 51 years now. And we’ve got a participant that’s been with us for 54 years. It’s a great organization,” said Ferrara.
EmployAbility is able to do the important work that it does primarily through government funding received from Medicaid, but in the last few years that money hasn’t kept up with the costs of providing such care.
“We haven’t seen a rate increase since 2007. . . Those [dollars] are not going very far anymore, and so we started pre-pandemic in the world of major fundraisers. We had a golf tournament just like everybody else . . . but we hadn’t really established anything. We had a [fundraising] event that highlighted two of the teaching mechanisms that we had. One was a catering business and the other was a garden. We had this huge, beautiful garden. Part of it was floral. The other part was a vegetable garden. And we would use the produce in the culinary program. So we had this beautiful garden party and we had all kinds of great partners like 24e who gave us a whole bunch of furniture, and the Poppell Brothers gave us a bunch of astro turf to lay down and we had music. It was a really great, very successful fundraiser. But we were only able to have it in ‘18 and ‘19 in the course of the pandemic,” said Ferrara. “Then we had to make some changes in our business model, and we had to give up the building that the garden was attached to. So we spent the last three years trying to figure out what our [next] fundraiser was going to be.”
After much contemplation, the EmployAbility team came up with a novel idea to use their next fundraiser as an opportunity to celebrate a community leader who has done so much for the disability community here in Savannah. They decided on film veteran, ice creamery entrepreneur and community philanthropist Stratton Leopold.
“Stratton has been a partner of ours for the better part of 15 years. . . I’ve personally known Stratton for 20 years, but he’s been working with EmployAbility for somewhere between 10 and 15 years, employing our participants,” Ferrara said. “One of the services that we provide is to connect people with employers and then we help them get trained. We train the organization on creating the infrastructure that’s going to help the participants be the most successful. . . And we support them through the lifetime of the job, so we’re always going back twice a month, checking on them. And Stratton was an early adopter of what people typically call an integrated workforce. The last time we did the numbers . . . 10 percent of his workforce comes from us. And that makes him our largest by percent employer. . . He’s also been a very, very generous sponsor of ours. And then, to be quite frank, he’s got this great career in movies.”
Beyond the fame of his iconic ice cream shop, Leopold is a prolific film producer with more than 40 years in the industry. He has produced nearly 20 well known, high-budget major motion pictures, including films like 2003’s “Paycheck,” 2009’s “Star Trek,” and most recently this year’s “Neon Highway,” among others, with three upcoming projects currently in development.
Ferrara initially had the idea to do a film screening fundraiser similar to an event the 200 Club did a few years ago, but after further thought, he realized that no one has ever hosted a local celebration of Leopold’s life and work. There have been celebrations of the ice cream shop, but not the man behind it. So Ferrara decided to use an EmployAbility fundraiser as an opportunity to fete Leopold.
“He’s such a great community [advocate], someone who really gives back. So we wanted to, I’ll be honest, take advantage of his celebrity name because it attracts attention, but also just thank him for everything he’s done for us as well as the community,” he said.
The fundraiser, titled Celebrating Stratton Leopold, will take the format of “Inside the Actor’s Studio” with a star-studded guest list including James Cromwell, Jamie Brewer and Zack Gottsagen. Michael Owens of the Tourism Leadership Council will lead a discussion with Leopold and the celebrity guests during the event.
“We’re going to start with a montage of Stratton’s films and his work. He’ll be on stage with James Cromwell, that’ll be the star power and get people interested and engaged. . . Then we’re going to transition into talking about Stratton’s reasons in his own words as to why he started working with EmployAbility and with people with special needs and what it’s done for his business. Then we’ll transition to bringing Zach and Jamie on stage and have them talk about their experiences in Hollywood and how Hollywood is working with an integrated workforce now. . . It’s good to see Hollywood no longer hiring Dustin Hoffman to play Rain Man. They’re actually going to hire someone who has autism to play that role,” said Ferrara. “That’s the message we’re trying to [spread]. . . To thank Stratton and to highlight the work that he’s done with us, and transition it to how the greater market has adopted those values as well.”
Ferrara encourages the public to attend this compelling fundraiser “because it’s going to be a ton of fun. You’ve got the Hollywood appeal, you’ll have James Cromwell there, and of course, you’ll have Stratton. Michael Owens is an amazing emcee. . . He’s just a lot of fun, very funny. We’ll get into some really poignant questions. . . It’s a great opportunity to hear some heartwarming stories, feel good, but also have a lot of laughs. It’s going to be a really unique experience. . . Nobody in Savannah has really ever honored Stratton in this way. We’ve never had an event like this where you have this great sense of mission.”
The event, taking place Saturday, April 20 at 7 p.m., will start at the Historic Savannah Theatre followed by a VIP experience at the Perry Lane Hotel. Proceeds from the event will support EmployAbility’s programs and initiatives. Beyond the fundraiser, those wishing to support EmployAbility in achieving its mission can do so in a variety of ways.
“You can hire people. Stratton will talk a lot about this. He does such a great job about the impact that employing our participants has had on his organization. What I typically tell people is that we’re not going to solve any cultural problems you have, but if you have a good culture, we can strengthen it even more. Most every organization that works with our participants knows that they are going to see an increase in retention and productivity among all of their staff. There’s some great statistics . . . the numbers are around 25 percent increase in their own investment. It has a huge impact. Everybody feels better about themselves, about their organization,” said Ferrara. “We love to have volunteers as well. That helps serve our mission. The more people that we can get actively engaging with our participants on campus, the more comfortable people become with people with disabilities. . . and of course, donations are always welcome.”
Ferrara is very grateful for the support EmployAbility has received from the community and the excitement they’ve seen about the fundraising event: “The reaction and support that we have gotten with sponsorships and engagement from the community is exceeding what our expectations were. It has not been difficult to get people interested in being a part of it whether that’s because of Stratton’s part in it or because they love our organization, or maybe a bit of both.”
Tickets for “Celebrating Stratton Leopold” are currently available online. Visit employabilityga.org/celebrating-stratton for more information about the event.
