By By Sheila Blackmon/The Meridian Star
March 12, 2001
DEKALB Tri-County Industries employees are planning an open house March 26 in honor of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month.
Tri-County Industries Director Jeanie Kilpatrick said Tri-County is a Hudspeth Regional Center Workshop, and information about both will be available at the open house.
People will be able to tour the workshop, which will be in operation as employees perform their day-to-day subcontract work. Staff members will conduct guided tours.
Tri-County Industries, located in the Kemper County Business Incubator in the Stennis Industrial Park on Highway 16, opened in 1994.
Receiving federal and state funding through the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, the workshop's main purpose is to provide work for people 18 years old and older who have developmental disabilities, Kilpatrick said.
The staff trains the employees in job skills so they can be placed in competitive employment, Kilpatrick said. Services for employees include pre-vocational and vocational training, evaluation, personal adjustment training and counseling.
Tri-County clients perform subcontract work for Mississippi businesses such as separating polo shirt collars, assembling file folders, clipboards, work boxes, automotive electrical harnesses and projection screens, printing, collating and assembling technical manuals, labeling and packaging materials, packaging and marketing fishing lures, modifying electronic circuit boards and constructing wood pallets.
The staff oversees the work and checks the products for quality.
Having served more than 90 people with disabilities, Tri-County currently has 32 clients and a staff of seven state employees. The open house is from 9 a.m. until noon. For more information, call 743-9931.
Sheila Blackmon is a staff writer for The Meridian Star. E-mail her at sblackmon@themeridianstar.com.