The car wash that makes people with autism shine
Rising Tide in Florida is no ordinary car wash. Over 80% of their employees has a diagnosis in the autism spectrum. And yet they wash over half a million cars a year and get excellent ratings from customers.
“The main goal of Rising Tide is to empower people with autism and related disabilities through gainful employment in the car wash industry”, says CEO John D’Eri In a short recent video by CNN. He’s the father of two sons, Thomas and Andrew. The latter got the diagnosis of autism when he was still a toddler. “What will happen to Andrew when I’m no longer around to take care of him?”, John asked himself.
As Andrew grew up, John started to see that although he was becoming a very capable young man, there were virtually no opportunities for him after he aged out of the school system. Then in 2011, when Andrew was 21, John came up with the novel idea of buying a car wash to employ Andrew and others like him.
Since then, the Rising Tide Car Wash has been on the cover of countless magazines and was the subject of interest of many similar projects that made an effort of creating a sustainable social enterprise.
A paddle
“80% of our staff is in the autism spectrum”, says Thomas D’Eri of Rising Tide. “The first thing we do is try to look at the workplace through our employees’ eyes.” The company then decided to design a paddle to avoid difficult social interaction with customers. The staff now uses paddles with clear instructions for car drivers what to do and where to go.
The learning didn’t stop there. “We try to embed training into the workplace wherever we can”, D’Eri continues. “We also use color codes as much as possible.” If an employee forgets an instruction he or she can go to a nearby QR code, scan it and see a short instruction video before going back to work.
Three locations
Since 2011, Rising Tide Car Wash has gone from 1 to 3 locations. They now operate successful car washes in Parkland, Margrete and Coral Springs, all in Florida. The first two washes offer external and internal cleaning, the Coral Springs-location only has exterior services. All three offer free vacuuming.
From buying a failing car wash and transforming it into a profitable, high-performing business took many years. When they started out in 2012, they were only washing 35,000 cars a year. Now that number has risen to almost half a million cars and Rising Tide is a thriving operation which offers a unique service.
They are indeed proving that everyone can shine.
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