Amy Pennington smiles every time she sees her employees interact with customers. She starts her days around 10 a.m. at ScoopAble, coming in to make the ice cream, get organized, and count tips.
The shop smells like vanilla waffle cones, and the windows are decorated with hand-drawn notes from customers. But what Pennington loves most is seeing her employees in their element.
Employees “can be themselves and be comfortable with it. And the customers respond very well to it,” said Pennington, because at ScoopAble “it's natural [. . .] to have individuals with Down syndrome, individuals with autism, all kinds of different disabilities, deaf, non-speaking, whatever — they're all interacting and communicating in a way that is just natural.”
Pennington said that when she was growing up in Cincinnati, people with disabilities “were hidden away.” The moment her daughter entered her life, everything changed.
“So my moment of truth, I wouldn't say is a moment,” she said. “I would say it has been an ongoing process, but it would definitely be that my daughter being born and having that diagnosis of Down syndrome was the shift of opening my eyes to seeing other individuals with disabilities that I didn't see before.”
The search for a 'brighter future'
At the time, Pennington and her husband lived in Brown County, where she worked as a state trooper for 15 years. She liked her job and community, but her family was too far from the things Kennedy needed.
“We had to drive like 45 minutes to an hour to get to a lot of the resources that we did use or need, especially the hospital.”
She and her husband moved to Clermont County to be a little closer to everything their daughter, Kennedy, would need as she grew.
When Pennington began attending Down Syndrome Association of Greater Cincinnati (DSAGC) meetings, she was nervous. Other than her infant, it was the first time she interacted with people with Down syndrome. But she found the community welcoming and “amazing.”
“I was like, ‘Oh, OK, now I see a brighter future than what I did…because I didn't have a reference before.’ ”
When Kennedy was 5, Pennington discovered GiGi’s Playhouse, a global organization that provides free educational, therapeutic and career development programs for individuals with Down syndrome. At the time, the closest location was in Indianapolis. Once a week for 10 weeks, she drove to Indianapolis so Kennedy could participate in their reading program; its effectiveness astounded Pennington.
“And [Kennedy] learned how to read just like that,” she said. “Like it was so quick, and I was like, wow…it was effortless.”
When she approached the Down syndrome community with her desire to open a local GiGi’s Playhouse, she was surprised to find the idea controversial. Pennington lost many people she was close to in her support system. They thought the idea was “potentially competing with the DSAGC,” she said.
She didn’t see it as a competition though. “[The DSAGC] is amazing, it does great, great things,” she said. GiGi’s Playhouse simply offers something smaller and more personal. So she forged ahead.
“Until I opened that place, I wasn't gonna quit.”
After the four years it took Pennington to reach her goal and open GiGi’s Playhouse Cincinnati, she was ready to go in a new direction.
“I was done with nonprofits. I was like, if I'm going to do this much work [on] something, I don't want to do it for free.”
Building that future
Years earlier, she came up with the idea for ScoopAble in business school. Remembering that assignment fueled the inspiration for her next step. Now with years of fundraising and advocacy under her belt, she felt ready to turn that idea into reality.
“The unemployment rate of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is extremely high,” she said, “so I just really wanted to build a future for my daughter.”
Often, even when individuals with disabilities find employment, they are relegated to positions behind the scenes. At ScoopAble, they are front and center.
“I had one employee that was a dishwasher [at a previous place of employment]. He rarely interacted with the customers. But now he's a manager here. [He] interacts with them on a daily basis and problem solves and does all these things, but he was not allowed to explore that because they put him in that little bucket of ‘this is what you can do.’’ '
Pennington says hearing how ScoopAble is changing people’s perspectives keeps her motivated. One customer shared that their visit to ScoopAble allowed her to see a future for her son, who has complicated medical needs. She said she could now envision him working somewhere that celebrates him in the future.
“So for Kennedy, whether she wants to work here or anywhere else, I just want her to have a place where she is valued as an individual. And I think being here and seeing role models every day…she knows everybody's name, she knows they all know her. They all know what she likes to eat.”
Pennington hopes it can be a place where Kennedy can work and build the same confidence her employees are building today.
“I don't feel like I'm gonna change the world in this one place,” Pennington says. “My one big vision goal is to inspire other businesses to employ individuals with disabilities in all areas in their business, not just cleaning, not just this or not just that that we typically see. So I just want to inspire other businesses to see the value.”
Read more from Next Gen journalists: