When 32-year-old Beau Ellerbee lost his sight due to diabetic retinopathy six years ago, he thought his life was over.
“I had 20/20 vision and a year and a half later, I had none,” recalls Ellerbee, who was born with Type 1 diabetes.
But as Business Report details in a feature from the current issue, Ellerbee has found new hope and a new career at Lighthouse Louisiana, a nonprofit which employs blind and disabled people.
Lighthouse Louisiana, which opened a 48,000-square foot facility on North Flannery Road in 2010, earns revenue by producing paper cups and selling them to businesses and government agencies. Ellerbee is one of 31 people employed at the nonprofit. Twenty four of them are blind.
Last year, Lighthouse earned $3.8 million in revenue on paper cups, with 85% of that coming from government clients and 15% from commercial businesses, says Lighthouse Louisiana President Renee Vidrine.
Relying on government business is not a steady form of revenue, as government shutdowns, budget cuts and outsourcing products are all factors that could affect its primary business, Vidrine says.
For the past three years, the Baton Rouge Lighthouse has been steadily building its commercial base, manufacturing cups in different colors with logos for local commercial business. Bill Rice, executive director of sales and purchasing for Lafayette-based Krispy Krunchy, purchases Lighthouse cups for the fast-food chicken restaurant.
“We love to support the Louisiana market, and we were looking for a company to produce drink cups,” Rice says. “Obviously, it’s about supporting those in need, but they also produce a great product, they’re competitively priced and they’re local.”
Ause Ismail, an owner of Po-Boy Express, a family-owned restaurant in Baton Rouge, decided to buy cups from Lighthouse even though they were slightly smaller than the ones the restaurant was currently using.
“When our distributor mentioned the cups, I asked him to bring me a sample and it was a nice cup and the prices were competitive. One of the reasons we decided to go with them was because of who they are and how much they helped in the community,” Ismail says. “We got a lot of backlash from our customers because the cups were a little bit smaller, but when we explained who they were and how they were produced, they were OK with it.”
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