Business & Tech

From Basement to Business Park: Heartland Industries Is an Affton Story

The non-profit provides work for the disabled and was our nominee in the 'Click to Claim' contest.

In a large, clean, high-ceilinged industrial building in the Green Park Commerce Center in , 150 workers pack mailings, wrap spray cans and fill colorful rubber balls. It’s a Monday, but the workers aren’t grumbling about the start of the workweek. To the contrary.

“Our cliché is TGIF, but theirs is ‘thank God it’s Monday,’” said Greg Keller, who does business development and public relations for Heartland Industries, located at 9727 Green Park Industrial Drive.

—previously W.A.C. Industries—is a non-profit company that aims to do more than just light manufacturing and mechanization for its customers: it’s primary objective is to provide jobs for the intellectually challenged and the disabled.

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W.A.C., which stood for both ‘working and caring’ and ‘work activity center,’ was founded in 1971 by a group of 17 area families with disabled children who wanted to find a way to enrich their children’s adult lives with dignified employment.

“At the end of the day they want the same things we want, to feel like they are contributing to their community. And they do,” Keller said.

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The company’s first workshop was set up in the basement of St. George Church. Soon, however, they outgrew that space and moved in 1978 into the old Affton High School Building on Mackenzie Road, . Two years ago they expanded further and moved to their currently industrial park location at the site of a former plastics factory.

Heartland Industries mostly provides business services such as shrink wrapping, packaging, printing, bindery services, bulk mailing and order fulfillment. Their customers include churches, the and even the St. Louis Cardinals. Workers are paid based on their output. The products are meticulously checked and quality controlled, and according to Keller Heartland’s workers are especially adept at spotting small defects in merchandise or errors in production.

“How would you know who did this when it came out of this building,” Keller said.

In their large space they also offer storage to customers and provide job training and soft skills development for a Special School District class from Southview Special Education School in Sappington. Some of these students go on to work at Heartland after graduation, or at one of the other 90-some ‘sheltered’ workshops in Missouri.

For the workers who come every week, most from around the South County area, Heartland is a place of jokes, teamwork and constancy. One worker Jeff rides his bike to work in any weather. When the workshop shut down during the , one worker who didn’t hear of the snow day made the treacherous journey by bus from St. Louis City.

“We have a variety of personalities and they are all wonderful,” Keller said.

Recently Heartland Industries was nominated to represent Affton and Shrewsbury in our . The contest encouraged businesses from around St. Louis’s 24 Patch sites to support a local non-profit or charity by claiming their listing (for free!) in our business directory. If you own or manage a business, .


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