Belco Works CEO Anne Haning expresses her excitement at the grand opening of the new Document Destruction Facility.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — After years of planning, Belco Works will now have a new document destruction facility.

Belco Works CEO Anne Haning said that she is so happy to see the excitement from the individuals Belco Works serves in finally moving into the new facility.

“Their excitement is pretty palpable in that they’ve been excited from day one, when we announced this, and they finally got to get here and see this,” she said, “and now they’re working here, learning work skills, being trained in work skills that hopefully lead them to future employment and community businesses.

“I think we’ve created an environment here that’s very conducive to that,” Haning added. “We’re very proud of the fact that it’s safe, clean, modern, state of the art, and it brings a great deal of dignity to the work and to the people that we serve, which we feel is very important, because those are the same things we all desire when we go to work, when we go anywhere in the community, is that it be all of those things and welcoming to us.”

The updated facility features state-of-the-art shredding equipment and a redesigned production space.

Belco Works recycles more than 400,000 pounds of paper annually which keeps it out of landfills.

“I am most excited that we’re able to celebrate this and to share with the community some of our excitement,” Haning said. “This has been such a long term goal of ours and to have it finally become real is extremely rewarding, but it also points us in the direction of there are more challenges ahead.

“We want to grow,” she added. “We want to expand in every way. We want to be able to serve more people and want to be able to serve them the way they want to receive their services.”

Founded in 1966, Belco Works is a nonprofit that supports adults with developmental disabilities through employment services, life enrichment programs, and vocational training.

Haning said that, although Belco Works is a training facility, it’s a paid training facility allowing the individuals it serves to collect a paycheck while learning various skills.

“It is not their ultimate job,” Haning said. “Those who want work, we will help them find a job that matches their skill sets. We have a staff that does that specifically, they work one on one with people to figure out their career path and help find a job for them, support them at that job, train them at that job, and provide support to help them be successful. For others, we have a group of people that have been involved in this program for 30 plus years.

“Some of those folks are more interested in simply maintaining their level of skills, and we respect that,” she continued. “So we will continue to provide them with ongoing training to maintain skills. A job in the business community may not be their ultimate goal, but we’ll support them in what they want to do.”

Belco Works COO Kim Cain was emotional while speaking about the opening of the new facility. She said that Belco Works has been working towards this new building for the past 10 years.

Although it’s been a goal for 10 years, Belco Works broke ground on the facility in June 2024.

“We provide services to adults with developmental disabilities,” Cain said. “Everything here is training for work opportunities. So they do different work skills, here we have our document destruction services that people are very familiar with. You can drop paper off at any time, but it is our folks that do all the work.

“Objectively, we want to make sure that they have the skills they need so they can go out and get a job in the community,” she added.

Cain said that the facility also has a production area where the individuals it serves are contracted through various area businesses to package their items.

“We have contracts with TechnoCap, Liberty, and Riesbeck’s,” she said. “We do scanning for Riesbeck’s, we also work in their bakery, packing cookies, and we pack screws for Liberty. TechnoCap, we check the lids, so those are all Ohio Valley businesses that use us, which is cool.”