Managing Director receives Distinguished Award for Nonprofit Service
Published on 05/21/2012
Each year at their annual Board of Directors meeting, Community Options gives a prestigious and distinguished award – The Betty Pendler Award to a deserving recipient.
Betty Pendler was a tireless advocate for persons with disabilities. She was committed to people with disabilities, their families, and those who serve them. She was a person of commitment, good will, new ideas and new approaches to service. Betty was a powerful and enlightened advocate.
This year, the organization granted Christopher Dixon with the Betty Pendler Award. Dixon has worked with Community Options for eight years in various roles. He currently oversees all operations related to social enterprise operations and development.
Over the past year, Dixon has developed an E-Commerce platform for one of the social enterprises, Presents of Mind. Presents of Mind is a brick and mortar store in New Jersey that sells gifts for all occasions. After studying the market for quite some time, Dixon successfully transitioned the store onto Amazon.com and Buy.com, which ultimately opened up extraordinary training and skill set advancement opportunities for people with disabilities that are employed in the store.
In addition, Dixon expanded Vaseful Flowers and Gifts, the only nonprofit flower store in the country that employs and trains people with developmental disabilities. By creating a second Vaseful location, Dixon was able to widen the demographic through geography, which also creates additional employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
“I am positively overwhelmed about my receipt of the Betty Pendler Award,” says Dixon. “I love that I have a job that allows me to create incredible platforms for people with disabilities to develop and maintain competitive employment in the workforce,” he added.
Dixon holds a Master’s Degree in Healthcare Administration and a Bachelor’s Degree from Brockport University, and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). Chris is responsible for the operational oversight and development of COE’s business enterprises, transitional education programs, creative services, and supported employment programs.
To learn more about Community Options, please visit www.comop.org. You can also join Community Options on Facebook at www.facebook.com/communityoptions. Chris Dixon