Dreamshine | Changing Lives For Individual's with Developmental Disabilities | #motivation

Mark Minard, Owner & Founder Of Dreamshine, Shares The Story Behind The Story Of Going Up Against The State Of Ohio st Age 26, To Fight For The Rights Of Individuals with Developmental Disabilities, Creating One Of The Most Innovative Agencies In Ohio Over The Past 17 years +

Learn More About Dreamshine Here

Dreamshine is Honored To Be a Leader In Employment First, Creating Person Centered Job Opportunities, & Impacting The Community, & So Much More at Our Dreamshine Campus...Where Dreams Shine On!!

Learn More About Mark Minard Here

​I got a phone call from a lady that worked high up at the state and said, "We shouldn't be opening up Dreamshine. It's in your best interest to not even try to open up, because it's not going to work out."

After college, I actually, I managed to graduate, but I had no idea what I was going to do. I ended up moving out to Ohio. I happened to get into the field working with individuals with special needs. Was offered a job teaching special education, and what happened is, when our first round of students went to graduate, it brought me back to square one.

All they had was these horrible institutionalized settings that had bright fluorescent lights. Their only options for these individuals with special needs was, they were either given machine parts or crayons and a piece of paper and told to color.

​It truly broke my heart to see that that was the only option.

I just realized something had to change, something had to be different.

I called that superintendent at that time. He said, "It's been this way for 40 some odd years. I've been the superintendent for 25 years, if you have a problem you can come down to my office." Within about 15 minutes I drove down to his office and showed up. I had two copies of the state rule and the state law, and I read it out loud to him. I said, "Since you've been doing this for 25 years, I'm sure you're familiar with this. They have the choice to go anywhere they want and if the county or the state tries to neglect their funding, they would actually be investigated, the entire state of Ohio, at the federal level."

​Literally the next day, our first client was enrolled in Dreamshine.

A lot of these individuals were counted out, they were put into a box and told, "It was going to be like this for the rest of your life." Actually, the state tried to get us to pay subminimum wage to the individuals with special needs, because that's what they were doing with their programs. I said, "We're going to pay them just like we pay any other human being. If you want to tell me to pay people with special needs subminimum wage, I would love for you to give that to me in writing, because that's going to make an awesome headline for a newspaper."

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We flashforward now, 10 years later, Dreamshine, the place that was supposed to be impossible, we created a job program there. It's really cool. Our different individuals are able to make these awesome soy waxed candles, gourmet chocolates, fire starters. We sell them on our webpage and they're able to earn paychecks. Now we have a two and a half acre campus with two buildings, a log home, a waterfront lodge that's all adapted. We have over 40 clients with special needs. I have about 17 people that are on my team.

I liked to share that with everyone right now, just to know no matter what you're up against, whatever Goliath you're facing, truly all things are possible.