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Shares, Inc. Receives Award For Outstanding Service

Shares, Inc. of Shelbyville, Indiana was awarded the Outstanding AbilityOne Program Vendor Award by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA).

Shares, Inc. received the Outstanding AbilityOne Program Vendor Award, which is presented to organizations that exemplify overall excellence in product quality, on-time delivery, customer service, dependability, and accuracy.

This award recognizes Shares, Inc. for having demonstrated exceptional efforts in partnering with the DLA and improving the agency’s mission of providing supplies and services to America’s military forces worldwide.

Shares, Inc., a source of supply for glow plugs, has been able to keep up with an unprecedented demand for this essential starting aid for diesel engines and has continued to show how efficiently it can adapt to increases in demand, time table adjustments and special requests. Shares’ effective fulfillment and distribution capabilities and strong staff have helped earn Shares, Inc. a top spot among the DLA’s top suppliers in 2008.

The Defense Logistics Agency is part of the Department of Defense (DOD). DLA provides supply support, and technical and logistics services to the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and several federal agencies. Headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Va., the agency is the one source for nearly every consumable item, whether for combat readiness, emergency preparedness or day-to-day operations, inside the DOD.

The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) has announced another round of Direct Service Workforce Investment Grants to be funded by pandemic relief funding from the federal government. A key and critical focus of FSSA’s Home-and Community-Based Services Spend Plan for the federal funds is on supporting the direct service workforce. As part of the DSW State Plan which includes short-, mid-, and long-term strategies around wages and benefits; training and pathways; and promotion and planning, FSSA is launching a critical short-term wages and benefits strategy in the form of a Direct Service Workforce Investment grant opportunity. DSWs (defined more broadly than DSPs but does not include administration) are essential in providing the day-to-day, in-person support necessary for people to live, work, and participate in their communities. FSSA is dedicating $130 million to this opportunity with a requirement that 95% of funding awarded flow directly to DSWs.

The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is issuing Shares, Inc. funding to support our direct service workforce. Shares, Inc. will receive 3 equal payments in the amount of $36,628.39. We received our first payment in January 2023. The additional payments are expected to arrive in early spring and the final in early summer. We plan to use the funding in the following way to invest in our Direct Service Workers.

To provide immediate support to our workforce we plan to issue longevity bonuses to those employees who meet the definition of Direct Support Worker. We will dedicate 95% of the grant funding (minus payroll and Workman’s Compensation increased cost) We will issue the bonuses in 3 installments one for each quarter a grant payment is received. We appreciate all the hard work our DSWs put in on a daily basis. We wanted to use this funding specifically for those employees that have worked tirelessly over the years to make Shares, Inc. the agency it is today.

Below is a chart detailing the longevity bonus structure we have chosen: