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To open up new BEP facilities and recruit new business for our BEP operators |
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To recruit new and outstanding operators into the Business Enterprise Program |
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To assist current BEP operators in maintaining our commitment to
excellence |
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To employ more people in work sites run by our blind vendors |
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To showcase the contributions blind people can make in Wisconsin |
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To educate the public about how well the Business Enterprise Program works, and our
commitment to excellence |
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To see the Business Enterprise Program promoted, expanded and enlarged in Wisconsin |
We aim to educate Wisconsin that if the BEP is not preserved, our state
stands to lose one of the most successful employment programs ever created,
and blind and visually impaired business owners and operators stand to lose
employment opportunities, their livelihoods, and their economic
independence.
In the words of Kevan Worley, the National President of the Blind Merchants,
"There are too many ifs, ands, buts, and mights. When [a young
potential blind vendor] sees that their first location is one of those old-fashioned
'blind stands' in the basement under the stairs with a leaky pipe in the ceiling
and not enough power for four-slice toaster, they'll run for the safety of a
computer programming job, a position as a rehab counselor, a piano tuner, or
just stay home and read talking books."
In 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt said, "The test of progress is not
whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, but whether we
provide enough for those who have too little."
Those words are still true today.
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