For 29-year old Shelley Ferguson, the best part of working at Thrift, Gift and Garden is the opportunity to meet people. “I like the people I work with…and the people who come in the store. I like to keep it all neat and clean so that people will come in.”

Shelley, who works part-time at the Port Orchard thrift store, is a terrific success story. As part of her on-site training with Peninsula Services, a not-for-profit Certified Rehabilitation Program, Shelley has learned to accept donations and prepare them for resale, maintain the store’s appearance and assist retail customers.

Most importantly, it’s obvious to anyone who walks in the door that she loves her job.

Marcia Farrell, Peninsula Service’s rehabilitation director, cites Shelley’s enthusiasm as one of the biggest incentives that Kitsap County employers could ask for in using the service’s clients for temporary, part-time and full-time employment.

“Inevitably what we hear from employers and from employees of the companies that we partner with is that our clients are incredibly reliable,” said Farrell. “They love going to work each day, they take pride in being there and being told that they’re doing well…and more often than not, their attendance is one hundred percent. In reality, isn’t that every employer’s dream?!”

Founded in 1971 as an employment and training program for people with disabilities, Peninsula Services has an impressively successful track record in working with Kitsap-based businesses. In fact, they were so successful in performing contract work at local Navy bases that they now oversee contract work at U.S. Navy facilities in Everett and on Whidby Island, at Fairchild Air Force base in Spokane and at Gig Harbor’s Air Traffic Control center.

Peninsula Services clients perform everything from groundskeeping and janitorial services at the bases to stocking shelves at the base exchanges. Yet other Peninsula Services clients work at the non-profit’s thrift store, at the agency-owned Kitsap E-Z Earth facility or with other businesses throughout Kitsap County.

Most of the agency’s clients are referred to them through state or federal agencies such as the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, the Department of Labor and Industry or the Veterans Administration.

The trick, insists executive director Jill Robinson, is to not get caught up in the definition of “disabled.”

“Our clients all have individual skills and needs and their disabilities are just as varied,” said Robinson. “What we specialize in is training our clients to work within their skill set and then help them put those skills to use in the business world. The clients get to go to work, the employers get eager, highly-trained employees and it’s a win-win situation.”

With a staff of nearly one hundred and forty, Peninsula Services provides training and re-training to individuals who may be developmentally disabled, blind, deaf, have physical limitations or simply need to be retrained in a new skill due to an injury.

Employers who utilize Peninsula Services’ employees can often expect an on-site job trainer – at no cost to the hiring company – and periodic check-ins by trained vocational counselors to make sure that work projects are running smoothly.

In addition, said Robinson, some employers can apply for tax credits, on-the-job-training subsidies and, in some instances, even see hourly wages subsidized during extended training programs.

The agency is funded through a combination of state rehabilitation and job training programs, revenues from employer contracts, the United Way and local corporations and community groups such as Lockheed and the Bremerton Rotary.

Unfortunately, laughs Marcia Farrell, the one area that Peninsula Services doesn’t expect revenue, or at least profits, from in the near future is the 1,300 square foot Thrift, Gift and Garden.

“We really designed the store originally as a venue for on-site training and employment for some of our clients,” said Farrell. “The store really took off from there…it’s lovingly taken care of and the staff and full-time manager have done an incredible job with it. What we’ve never done is raise the store’s prices to achieve a profit or even to reflect the quality in the store.”

“We are,” Farrell laughs, “the best kept value secret in Kitsap County.”.