Endeavour Foundation’s Learning and Lifestyle Hub in Gympie, is not just a space for people with disability to learn new skills because for 60-year-old Stephen Hempenstall, it has provided a platform that was able to help boost his side-hustle business.
With his own determination and the assistance of his support workers, Mr Hempenstall actively collects his building materials from an array of local businesses and generous members of the community who donate timber and items to aid him in his bid to build possum, bird and other wildlife boxes from scratch.
However, it’s through the Learning and Lifestyle Hub’s community access program, that he utilises the site during his 1:1 shifts to build his products, making use of the space and support available to him.
“I got the inspiration to do this from a book one of my Home support worker friends had,” said Mr Hempenstall.
“They initially helped me get started to build the boxes but then I kept going.
“I just like doing this for the animals,”
Commencing his concept only a year ago, Mr Hempenstall admits while he’s completed countless orders, “I have a heap more to get done,” selling his items at a monthly local market.
In fact, Gympie Learning and Lifestyle Site Manager, Elissa Biancucci, says Mr Hempenstall is becoming so recognised for his work he now has an order book that’s fast filling up.
“He gets customers to place their orders in the book, which he shows his support worker, who then connects with the customer to let them know how long it will take until their order is ready,” added Ms Biancucci.
“He sources timber and other items through Endeavour Foundation’s Gympie Recycle Market, and gratefully accepts donations from the public as well as from Maryborough Business Solutions site”,
However, Mr Hempenstall’s story and entrepreneurial talents are not completely unique.
According to ‘Australia’s Disability Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: Experiences of People with Disability with microenterprises, self- employment and entrepreneurship’, data has found that people with disability in Australia actually have a higher rate of entrepreneurship of 13.1 per cent rather than people without disability with a rate of 9.2 per cent.
While Mr Hempenstall loves his entrepreneurial outlet he is, however, currently on the look-out for employment opportunities, ideally working locally in the automotive industry.
“I would love to work with cars or mechanics, even an auto smash repairer,” added Mr Hempenstall.
“I’ve had experience with heavy machinery when I spent time on a farm, and would love to explore this interest further.”
