NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Creative Spirit, the first 501(c)(3) non-profit organization devoted to finding fair-wage jobs for individuals with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual, developmental, and learning disabilities (IDDs) who are profoundly unemployed, announced today it will host a “Birthday Bash” celebrating the organization’s five-year anniversary in conjunction with Advertising Week New York on October 20.
A VIP event and celebratory after-party will be held at the Music Hall of Williamsburg beginning at 6:00 p.m. Tickets to the Creative Spirit Birthday Bash and sponsorships are available on the Creative Spirit website.
“Five years ago, we launched Creative Spirit at Advertising Week, an annual event in NYC, and garnered the support of the marketing community because of the industry’s ability to communicate profound problems like the disability unemployment crisis,” said Gina Grilo, CEO, The ADVERTISING Club of NY and Co-founder, Creative Spirit. “Companies, including Advertising Week, The ADVERTISING Club of New York, Disney, MRM, McCann, Omnicom, Rapp, Salient MG, Sony, Verizon, and Voya have steadfastly supported our efforts. We need more companies to join this effort — to offer fair wage integrated jobs to talented people with disabilities where they can earn a living wage. 85% of those with disabilities are unemployed and most, who do work, work for pennies on the dollar. How is this even possible in 2022?” Infillion, Whalar, Yieldmo, Zeno Group and a host of others have also signed on to support the event.
Donations raised at the event fund job coaching, corporate education and training free of charge. Creative Spirit’s mission is to make disability employment “the new normal,” and the organization’s goal is to employ 1 million individuals with disabilities by 2030. Andrea Sullivan, CMO, VaynerX, and Anastasia Williams, CEO, The AList, will co-chair the event. The event will also feature entrepreneur and disability advocate Keely Cat-Wells, Founder and President, C-Talent, part of Whalar.
“We’ve learned so much about inclusion and how to nurture talent from Creative Spirit over the years. We are excited to celebrate the organization’s growth; however, equity for people with disabilities and Creative Spirit need more partners,” said James Peluso, Director of People, MRM.
“As a trustee and as a partner company, I can say that the work we are doing at Creative Spirit is personally rewarding and a highly effective diversity, equity and inclusion effort for people with disabilities,” said Karen Eisenbach, CMO, Workplace, Voya Financial. “I am appealing to more companies to come out and celebrate with us on October 20, so that more organizations, like Voya, can help solve the disability joblessness crisis.”
For more information about Creative Spirit’s Birthday Bash sponsorship, to purchase tickets or make a donation, please visit https://one.bidpal.net/creativespirit/welcome.
About Creative Spirit
Creative Spirit is a certified 501(c)(3) organization devoted to creating fair wage integrated employment for individuals with intellectual, developmental, and learning disabilities who are currently unemployed at a staggering 85%. Creative Spirit offers corporate training and consulting to organizations interested in adding disability to their DE&I agenda. Creative Spirit is also dedicated to social justice for the 15% of those with IDDs who do work — paid an average of $3.34 an hour, or go unpaid altogether, because of outdated laws and rampant discrimination. This is a global crisis, and likely the most profound human dignity and economic discrimination issue of our time, yet it goes unsolved.
Contact Creative Spirit at www.creativespirit-us.org and follow us on social across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. #hiredifferent
