How to Support The Sunshine Stop Without Writing a Check

The Sunshine Stop — Excelsior, MN  |  thesunshinestop.org

Shine Bright! We say it— and we mean it. At The Sunshine Stop, our Sunshine Squad members aged 15 and up show up every day we are open and do exactly that. They hand-craft lemonade, make bracelets, mugs, dog blankets, and so much more. They take pride in their work. They love meeting people. And this year, they’re getting their very own store in Excelsior, MN.

None of it happens without community. And here’s the thing — supporting us doesn’t have to mean writing a check. There are so many ways to be part of what we’re building. Here are six of our favorites.

1. Shop With Us — and Bring Everyone You Know

Every mug, bracelet, and dog blanket you buy from the Sunshine Squad is made with real care by real people. When you shop with us — at a pop-up or soon, at our new Excelsior store — you’re directly funding meaningful employment for our employees.

We also carry a selection of curated items in the shop, so there’s always something worth finding. Come browse, come often, and come back.

2. Come to a Pop-Up 

Our pop-up events are honestly the best part of what we do. The Sunshine Squad serves fresh-squeezed lemonade, sells handmade goods, and gets to do what they love most: connect with people in their community. These events are joyful, energetic, and genuinely fun.

Show up. Buy something. Say hello to the Sunshine Squad — ask them how their day is going, what their favorite food is, what they’re doing this weekend. Talk to them like the young adults they are, because that’s exactly what they are. And then tell everyone you know to come next time.

Follow us on social media or check thesunshinestop.org to find out where we’ll be popping up next.

3. Give the Gift of Sunshine Squad Goods

Looking for a gift that actually means something? Our handmade items are perfect for birthdays, holidays, teacher appreciation, and just about any occasion you can think of. They’re made with pride, and every purchase supports an employee who earned that sale.

Keep us in mind the next time you need a gift. It’s one of the easiest ways to support the Squad while giving someone something they’ll genuinely love.

4. Spread the Word

We’re a young organization — founded in 2024 — and a lot of people in our own community still don’t know we exist. You can change that.

• Follow us on social media and share our posts

• Tag us when you visit or make a purchase

• Tell a friend, a neighbor, a coworker — especially anyone with a family member who has a disability

• Leave us a kind review online

Word of mouth is genuinely one of the most powerful things you can do for us. We’re growing fast, and we want the whole community to grow with us.

5. Volunteer

There is always more to do than hours in the day, and we are grateful for every set of hands that shows up. Whether it’s helping at a pop-up, supporting our new storefront, taking photos, assisting with social media, or pitching in behind the scenes — volunteers make a real difference at The Sunshine Stop.

Volunteering can also look different in every season. For example, we are especially excited to partner with The Polka Dot House (@the.polka.dot.house) this summer to offer a Wednesday art internship experience, creating additional opportunities for creativity, connection, and hands-on learning within our community.

In the fall as well as throughout the summer, we partner with other community businesses to bring social opportunities to our employees so they can continue building friendships, confidence, and community engagement all year long.

The only limit to what volunteering can be is what we can dream together. ☀️

If you’ve got time and heart, we’d love to have you.

https://form.jotform.com/260705094842155

6. Be a Voice for Inclusion in Your Community

The reason The Sunshine Stop exists is because when young people with disabilities age out of school, meaningful employment options are far too scarce. That’s a community problem, and it takes a community to fix it.

You can help by talking about this gap, advocating for inclusion in your workplace, and supporting organizations — like ours — that are working to close it. As we like to say: we want to prepare our employees for the world ahead, and plant seeds in our communities so they are prepared in return.

Every Action Counts

Supporting the Sunshine Squad doesn’t require a big budget — it requires a big heart. Show up. Shop. Share our story. And come say hi when we open our doors in Excelsior. We’ll save you a lemonade.

Shine Bright!  |  thesunshinestop.org

These Kids are not always Kids.

If you’re able to visit us at one of our Sunshine Stop locations as a customer, please always feel free to talk with our Sunshine Squad (what we call our staff). Ask them how their day is going, what their favorite food is, what they are doing for the weekend, who their favorite singer is, when is their birthday, etc. Whatever feels like a good ice breaker works!

Shine Bright! is the mantra of The Sunshine Stop and our Sunshine Squad employees. Everyone is encouraged to let their spirit and skills shine brightly while working. We often hear things like, “I love to stop by and see the kids working—it just makes my day.” We love to hear that! But, in truth, these kids are not always kids. We would like to kindly share in this Blog a simple PSA that when you talk about our staff, ideally, you refer to them as employees, Sunshine Squad members, or workers. And that you talk to them like the young adults they are. Our Sunshine Squad members are all aged 15+. They are aware of when they are being babied or spoken to in childish ways—and are often confused as to “why is this person talking to me that way?” They have many of the same likes, dislikes, wishes, dreams and fears as their neurotypical peers. Some of their abilities may be of grade levels far below their actual grade level (or HS graduation level) but that does not make them children. Their emotional maturity, sense of place in their community, and understanding of social situations can often be on par or exceed their neurotypical peers. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read this post. As we like to say, "we want to prepare our employees for the world ahead, and plant seeds in our communities so they are prepared in return."

What does it mean to work?

At The Sunshine Stop, we want to see more people with intellectual disabilities work in employment situations that not only provide them with a competitive wage, but also one that provides them with the same sense of pride and accomplishment that others without intellectual disabilities get from their employment. We hope to provide the foundational skills that can allow our employees to consider a wider range of future, customized employment opportunities in areas that truly interest and inspire them. Ask our Sunshine Squad members what other jobs they might like to do now that they’ve worked at The Sunshine Stop and you may hear some really great answers—a testament to our desire to help them find future customizable employment in our community!

“What do you do for a living?” is one of the most commonly asked questions when meeting a new person in a social setting and making introductions. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a question posed to kids all the time. For kids, the answer to that question is limited only by their ambition and imagination. As kids get older and learn more about what really interests them and where their skills shine, work options become fine-tuned and focused education and training options are explored. For many in the disability community, this is a time when the working opportunities can be severely narrowed and interests may really truly never be explored. The employment statistics are staggering for our disability community:  the employment rate for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) is significantly lower than for those without disabilities. In 2024, only about 19% of working-age adults with intellectual disabilities in the U.S. are employed, compared to 61.8% of the general population without disabilities. This population faces a high unemployment rate of around 17-21%, which is more than double that of other groups with disabilities. Additionally, 28% of adults with intellectual disabilities have never held a job, underscoring the challenges they face in entering the workforce, and why we are doing what we’re doing at The Sunshine Stop.

Sunshine Squad Support

At The Sunshine Stop, we believe in helping our Sunshine Squad and providing a  safe environment and a purposeful experience. We want our crew to understand that they can learn new things and that they will find what works best for them in employment situations. And that failure and trying different approaches may be part of the process. We won’t wrap our Squad in bubble wrap and protect them from all risk—we’ll be there supporting them as appropriately as they need while giving them their dignity to try and learn and be empowered. If you visit The Sunshine Stop and see a Squad member learning something new, appreciate the risk they are taking by working on their job skills publicly as they serve you. Every shift, every role, every sale—the Squad brings their best work and shares their skills with dignity and pride!

Ask anyone in the disability world what it means to treat someone who lives with a disability with dignity and respect, and you will likely hear what NOT to do. That’s because dignity is fundamentally about treating someone as a human of value, whose worth is acknowledged and welcomed regardless of any intellectual or physical differences. And sometimes our world doesn’t know how to do, act, speak and behave with our disability community in ways that provide dignity. Dignity is important when working with our Sunshine Squad and fundamental to how we approach all our employment support.   

But there’s more to dignity than just treating someone with a disability as human and worthy. There’s also taking the time, empathy and encouragement to provide a person with the inalienable human right to take a risk and possibly fail. Very often, dignity stops short when something scary, hard, or bad could happen to a person with a disability, resulting in a case where overprotection occurs. ‘You can’t try that, what if you don’t succeed?’ seems like something more acceptable to say to someone who may be already in a care situation where extra help is provided (such as a Personal Care Assistant or Paraprofessional). But why would we tell someone with a disability not to try something just because it’s hard or new? Because they might fail? If they fail, what does that mean? What, really, is the consequence? Don’t we all—regardless of ability or disability—learn from failure? If otherwise physically safe and supervised, can’t we learn news things in the most dignified and risk-acceptable way?

Hello World!

It’s here! The Sunshine Stop website launches today! If you’re seeing this blog, you’re witness to the launch of our first-ever actual website and we’re so glad you found us, welcome! Take a look around and notice all the great information and big ideas planned for the future. You’ll also see ways you can help our small-but-mighty nonprofit prepare for the 2025 Summer Season and beyond, as a donor, volunteer or employee.

Our new website is intended to be an evolving space where our team shares resources, highlights, events and photos. As well as, news and updates as we refine our strategic plan and vision. We have so much to do and so much to share—this is just the start of a lot of fabulous content to come! Please check back regularly for updates. We also have a new online store with lots of fun products and a newsletter coming soon—be sure to sign up at the bottom of this page to be one of the first to receive our regular email newsletter and updates from us.

Our hope is that the launch of this site might also create interest in other communities near and far. Please take a peek around our site and share with others to help us spread the word!

One last thing. We would like to give a big thank you to those who made this website possible. Thank you to Hello Design Shop and art director/designer Dena Collard for designing our new logo and website, to copywriter Karen Ryan who contributed to our website copy and to website photographer, Barbara Richman.