Bottle Me, the successful wine bottle washing operation employing members of the Sunshine Coast Association for Community Living (SCACL), is expanding to serve the Gibsons market via the Persephone beer farm.
SCACL assists community members with developmental disabilities. The association came up with the wine bottle washing operation about 18 years ago as a way to employ its members.
Donated bottles have been washed and sold on-site at SCACL in Sechelt for many years; however, last year SCACL became a five per cent share owner of Persephone Brewery Incorporated, making an expansion into the Gibsons market possible.
Just this week the bottle washing facility was moved to the Persephone beer farm where SCACL will now accept donations of used wine bottles to be cleaned and resold for $10 per group of 12 bottles.
SCACL will also accept donations of Persephone beer bottles to be cleaned and then resold to the beer farm as a way to create a little revenue for SCACL and keep costs down for Persephone.
“What we sell the bottles for covers basically the wages we pay,” noted SCACL executive director Glen McClughan, who added that workers are paid more than minimum wage for their efforts.
Some members of SCACL have worked for Bottle Me since its inception. Currently there are six members employed through the program.
SCACL serves a total of about 70 clients on the Sunshine Coast and many have spent time at Bottle Me over the years learning “valuable employment skills,” McClughan said.
He’s hopeful the community will continue to support SCACL’s Bottle Me efforts on the Coast through the new location at Persephone in Gibsons, but he notes the Sechelt location at Suite 105, 5711 Mermaid St. will remain open to take donations and sell bottles to customers on weekdays.
“We’ll continue to sell and collect donated bottles here [in Sechelt] but by locating ourselves at Persephone we hope to open up the Gibsons area as a market,” McClughan said.
Future plans for SCACL at the Persephone beer farm include possibly washing olive oil bottles for reuse by the Sunshine Coast Olive Oil Company and creating a saleable compost product from the waste at the end of the beer making process.
“It’s been a wonderful partnership between Brian Smith, the CEO and majority shareholder [of Persephone Brewery Incorporated] and our agency and all of the staff there, particularly Dion Whyte. They’ve just been very, very encouraging and welcoming,” McClughan noted.
“It hasn’t been just token inclusion. They really have embraced the idea of our people working there, and who knows where that can end?”
If you would like to support SCACL’s Bottle Me efforts, you can drop off your donations of empty wine bottles (not the screw cap kind) to either the Sechelt location at Suite 105, 5711 Mermaid St., or the Persephone beer farm at 1053 Stewart Rd. Both locations will also accept donations of Persephone beer bottles. No other kinds of beer bottles will be accepted.
At-home wine makers wishing to purchase the cleaned wine bottles can do so at either location starting next week.
