By Mary Lackie

Character dolls, swatches of fabrics and antiqued candlesticks stack the shelves of the temporary headquarters of Homebound Industries in the Goodwill warehouse at 701 Edgewood Avenue.

“We started at the bottom of the barrel,” said Mrs. Maxine Sandman, coordinator for Homebound Industries, “and we are grateful to the Goodwill for undertaking this program.”

“Contemporary—we hear that world so often—this program is one of ‘contemporary rehabilitation.’ The purpose is to fill a need for people formerly evaluated unemployable. The staff of trained instructors fills a need—our clients can be trained in projects that will help them to work to their capacity and develop their individual talents,” Mrs. Sandman said. The program plans to have 50 clients working either in their own homes or the sheltered workshop trained in three main projects; needlecrafts, woodcrafts and paper crafts. “Versatility is important. We hope to offer clients a variety of projects within one of the three main crafts and to revive old crafts that have been lost in our modern machine—age world,” she said.

The Homebound Industries is a self-supporting program under the direction of Steve Youngblood, executive director of Goodwill Industries of Atlanta, Inc. Merchandise will be sold wholesale or through the retail store.

To prepare for the new program, the Sandmans spent two weeks in Wisconsin on one study tour sponsored by Goodwill industries. They studied the 25-year-old Vocational Rehabilitation program and toured the Goodwill Center in Milwaukee, Wis.

“We can apply the tried and true methods and ideas of these organizations to our program,” Mrs. Sandman said. “Homebound Industries represents an economy to the state by employing people formerly unable to work. And, more important, perhaps, it gives the clients an opportunity to learn a variety of crafts that best suit their talents.”

Mrs. Sandman, a member of St. Anthony’s parish, taught art for 18 years and was a familiar guest on the Ruth Kent television show in Atlanta demonstrating art projects. “I sold our gifts shop, the Atlanta Showcase near Stone Mountain” she said, “so that I could devote all my time working with the handicapped. Now I am so busy, and there is much to be done.”