Enter To Win A Solid Oak Cat Bed Sponsored By Jeff Industries

        “Jeff Industries was started by a group of parents and is the result of a grass roots effort. In the mid 1970′s, a young man named Jeff was about to graduate from college when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to the State Mental Hospital. He spent seven years in the hospital prior to being released to his elderly parents, not because he was better, but because a law suit determined the state hospital was a bad place. Jeff moved back in to his boyhood bedroom in Delray Beach where he would continue to exhibit the same serious symptoms of mental illness that put him in the hospital. One day a month his dad would take him from his room to the South County Mental Health Center to see his doctor. The doctor would spend the allotted twenty minutes with him, give him a prescription for medication and reschedule him for the next month. One morning his dad knocked on Jeff’s bedroom door to gather him for his next doctor’s appointment when he heard a gunshot. Jeff put a gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger and killed himself. Jeff left a note stating, ” I have no reason to wake up.” At that time there were no (zero) community-based programs in place that assisted persons with mental illnesses in getting on with their lives and integrating them into the mainstream community. In 1983 Jeff Industries was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) agency  by his parents/grass roots Board of Directors. Jeff Industries, Inc. was created to fill a need for meaningful community-based programs that assisted mentally ill persons in the transition from hospital to the community. Adults with serious mental illnesses were given the opportunity to be productive and to increase self-esteem by building picnic tables and bike racks, etc. This program helped ease these individuals back into the community and gave them “a reason to wake up.”

        “Over the years, the Jeff Industries blossomed into a regarded multi-faceted, vocational training and employment oriented therapeutic rehabilitation center. The adult work center offers paid training and employment opportunities through Tropical Sun Enterprises (i.e. bakery cafe’: embroidery and fabric printing; CNC routed and sandblasted signs; vinyl lettering; large format digital printing; general construction and woodworking; janitorial services) as well as, job placement services. The work/vocational center has received Local, State and National recognition, and has been recognized as one of only three state-wide mental health organizations for use of Best Practices by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (Nami).”

The client-workers at Jeff Industries make several adorable pet products which can be purchased online through their Etsy store. The sale of these products not only give the client-workers at Jeff Industries a reason to “wake up,” but also help to support their life changing programs. Because this is such a valuable program we ask that in the event that you are not the giveaway winner you please consider supporting Jeff Industries by purchasing a product through their Etsy store.

We are giving away the handcrafted, Jeff Industries, solid oak, cat bed shown in the photograph at the top of this blog posting.

This giveaway is open to all U.S. residents and will begin on 7/20/12 at 8:00 p.m. pacific time. The giveaway will run through 8/4/12 and will end promptly at 8:00 p.m. pacific time. To enter the giveaway simply leave a comment with your name and email address in the comment section located below. Only one entry per person is allowed per day.

Note: The giveaway winner will be selected at random at the close of the giveaway by using random.org.