CCSS began linking job training and permanent employment with ways to reduce our footprint on the planet in late 2007.

The first "business" to be created was modeled after a micro enterprise from Oaklahoma. There a group of Native Americans were recycling old tires and using the rubber to create mats. With their permission and advice, Cass started collecting illegally dumped tires off of vacant lots in Detroit and converting them into mud mats. The workers in the program are formerly homeless men. They have swept up over 15,000 tires (at no cost to the City) and sold over 7,000 mats as of June 2011.

The second "business" to be added is the document destsruction (shredding) program. Here developmentally disabled adults sort, shred and bale paper. Most of it contains sensitive information and, so, the highest security measures are utilized to insure and document the chain-of-custody. The program's regular customers include physicians, lawyers and accountants. We have recycled 145 tons of paper to date.

The document destruction program has grown to include recycling x-rays from doctors and veternarians. Here, too, adults with developmental disabilities are the trainees and employees. They remove and destroy patient information from the films and package what remains of the x-rays for recycling. Doctors who give x-rays to CCSS receive documentation of their donation and that CCSS has upheld the HIPPA standards in recycling the x-rays.

The Cass One Cup Car Wash will open in July of 2010. This environmentally-friendly car wash uses dramatically less water than traditional washes and uses biodegradable wash products. Thus, there is no water or chemical runoff. Car wash employees are homeless men and women, most of them are also veterans. The One Cup Car Wash is mobile and can be scheduled to clean your corporate, government or organization's fleet.  

Finally, we have a vocational program that isn't officially a Green Industry, the CCSS sewing program. It began in 2009 with women from our tranisitional housing at Mom's Place. Cass purchased fabric from Ghana, made by a micro enterprise started by women with AIDS. The Cass women sew these materials into stoles and other garments that are then sold locally.