Packaging Plus
 
A Division of Cornerstone Associates, Inc.
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Company History
In the summer of 1969 Thelma Bonney started Benton Association for Retarded Citizens to meet the needs for a day activity program for 5 young adults who were considered too disabled to work in the local sheltered workshop.

Thelma Bonney retired in 1975, that same year the program was renamed Bonney Work Activity Center in her honor.

Bonney Work Activity Center (B.W.A.C.) became a private, not-for-profit corporation in March 1978.

B.W.A.C. evolved into a model work activity program that employed people previously considered too disabled to work. In 1978, in conjunction with Teaching Research in Monmouth, B.W.A.C. provided staff training to other similar programs throughout the Northwest.

While the program began primarily with a social skills and recreation focus, Bonney Center (as it was known at the time) became one of the first programs of its kind to realize the potential people with severe disabilities had to perform complex and meaningful work for pay.

Bonney Center relocated in February 1980 in order to provide more services and greater production capacity. The number of individuals served gradually grew to 36 by 1986.

Tim Rocak joined as executive director in 1986 and he helped diversify the customer base by offering work opportunities outside the sheltered facility. Landscape maintenance and janitorial businesses were developed and job placements into other community businesses were initiated through the new supported employment program.

In 1987 Bonney Center recognized that the training technology which allowed people with severe disabilities to work in sheltered settings could be applied successfully in more normal community settings. We saw the value in community integration and community based employment.

As Bonney Center began to see how services offered in more normal work settings better matched individual preferences and needs, we set out to convert our services from the sheltered service model.

In 1987 the Board approved a name change to Bonney Enterprises, Inc.

In keeping with the new emphasis on community integration new contracts with Hewlett-Packard were negotiated to have the work performed at their site from 1989-1991.

In order to offer more career choices, decrease dependency on public funding, and increase our involvement with community businesses, Bonney Enterprises, Inc. (BEI) purchased Taylor Street Ovens bakery in 1990, and B&J Bookbinding in 1991. We closed our sheltered workshop in order to offer totally community-based services.

BEI was the first sheltered program in Oregon to make this conversion.

In 1995 our packaging business created it's own identity by becoming Packaging Plus. In 2002 an automotive repair business grew out of Colorwheel Gardens & Landscape Maintenance to become Automotive Plus.

In November 2001 we merged with another local not-for-profit called Open Door, Inc. and we renamed the new organization Cornerstone Associates, Inc. The merger has allowed us to offer more opportunities for the people we serve by adding, Crystal Lake Janitorial, Wood Shop, Senior Services and expanded Packaging Plus' services.