Creating Glory

 

HOUSTON—Mark’s routine is the same each day; he wakes up, eats breakfast with his parents, brushes his teeth and goes to work. When Mark arrives at work the adventure begins. On a typical day he fills customer orders, completes hands-on projects, and works with advanced computer software and machinery. He spends his days working with his friends at a company that gave him his first job out of high school. Mark and his co-workers are all people with special needs.

Revived Glory Awards was founded in 2013 for one purpose; to provide jobs to people with special needs. A smart boy, Mark was often over looked in school because of his special needs. He is highly focused, and enjoys working on computers, but Mark doesn’t speak and has trouble with traditional testing methods. Kids like Mark often get lost in the shuffle of the school system. They are taught basic life skills like folding clothes and cleaning, but traditionally miss out on rewarding work once they graduate. Mark’s mom, CEO and Founder of Revived Glory Awards, Sharon Meaden recalls being frustrated when teachers would tell her that her son had poor reading comprehension.

“I could see him think and I watched him learn to use the computer, but just because he didn’t test like other children, they said he couldn’t understand things as well and I knew that wasn’t true,” said Meaden.

One day Meaden spied a box of old trophies in her garage. Always looking to liberate storage space, she wondered what she could do with the forgotten awards. That was when she had an idea—what if she could take apart old trophies and create new, exciting awards with the parts? She enlisted Mark to help, and found that his skills were perfectly suited for the job.

 

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After doing some market research, Meaden founded Revived Glory Awards in 2013, which became the only company in Houston to accept donations of used trophies and awards. The company is also the first in Houston to create trophies and awards containing 50 to 80 percent recycled materials.

Mark enjoys the work, too. He took to sorting the parts and using the tools to disassemble even the smallest trophies immediately. When the company added in laser engraving, Mark was first in line to learn the computer software. Today Mark works with his friends in a fast-paced, high-energy environment; no day is the same, and Mark loves it. The look on his face says it all.

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