Media Release:

22 May 2006                                                            FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Harbor City Services expands shredding business line

(Baltimore, Maryland) Harbor City Services, Inc., today announced the expansion of its document destruction business line with the acquisition of new high-volume shredding and baling machines. Harbor City Services has secured a loan from Provident Bank for the new machinery with the Abell Foundation as a guarantor.

With a staff trained for quality service and customer satisfaction, Harbor City Services is now offering shredding services to small and mid-sized businesses. Harbor City Services provides secure shredding bins in a variety of sizes to suit every customer, from discreet desk-side consoles to massive-volume wheeled models. Harbor City Services tailors shredding contracts to each client’s needs, with weekly, monthly, occasional pick-ups, or one-time-only purges.

Harbor City Services, a business on a mission, is taking aim at companies that are required to maintain personal history and health records on clients and patients. Because of the regulations of HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 – that now means almost every business and profession. Current Harbor City Services customers include law and accounting firms, pharmacies and medical practices.

Harbor City Services now has four business lines: documents management - file/record inventory, storage, and purging; document destruction, which furnishes the shredding customer with certificates of destruction; commercial and residential moving and storage (and sales of packing supplies); and warehousing, with shipping and receiving.

“Start-up funding, operating revenue and equipment purchases are difficult capital hurdles for non-profits engaged in social enterprise,” says Bob Embry, president of the Abell Foundation. “We are happy to facilitate a loan guarantee for Harbor City Services, a business committed to generating jobs for disabled workers.”
Harbor City Services is a not-for-profit warehouse business creating competitive and gainful employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Started in 1987, the company employs 50 persons in full and part-time work, provides excellent customer service and is 100% self-sustaining on earned income. This nonprofit model, known as social enterprise, employs good business practices in service of a social mission. Harbor City Services is an award winning social enterprise.

“This loan and guarantee make it possible for Harbor City Services to expand our shredding service, in line with our strategy to make it easier for our customers to protect their company’s information and free up space for their core business,” says CEO and Founder John Herron, MSW, MBA.

Harbor City Services is a member of National Association of Information Destruction (NAID), Maryland Motor Truck Association, Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA), and Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations.

For more information, go to harborcityservices.com, or call 410-737-6701.

December 10, 2002

Social Enterprise Alliance selects five winners at Earned Income Showcase

(Minneapolis, Minnesota) The Social Enterprise Alliance today announced the award of $5000 in cash prizes to five nonprofits with exemplary “earned income” projects designed to lessen dependence on grant or government funding. Winners were selected from among candidates in an “Earned Income Showcase” and included Aquilla Wheelchair Partners (Highland Park, IL), Bookshare.org (Palo Alto, CA), The Enterprising Kitchen (Chicago, IL), Greystone Bakery (Yonkers, NY), and Harbor City Services, Inc. (Baltimore, MD).

Winning projects were selected by a panel of more than two dozen grantmakers gathered in Minneapolis as part of the 4th National Gathering for Social Entrepreneurs, an annual meeting of 400 nonprofits, funders, and consultants interested in promoting earned income strategies to support social concerns. Projects were evaluated on the basis of clarity of presentation, market demand, social impact, creativity-innovation, management track record, and income potential. Each winner received a check for $1,000 and feedback on their business idea from funders and experienced practitioners in the field.

The Social Enterprise Alliance is a nonprofit membership organization with nearly 600 members from around the world, primarily US and Canada. The rapidly growing organization reflects an emerging trend in the nonprofit community to leverage assets and create multiple streams of revenue to support social initiatives.

Admission to the Earned Income Showcase was open to social entrepreneurs who wanted an opportunity to display new or expanded earned income projects to potential social investors participating in a special forum co-hosted by the Social Enterprise Alliance and GEO - Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. Showcase participants had the opportunity to discuss their projects with grant makers and social investors who may become future supporters.

The Showcase winners and other projects reviewed at the conference demonstrate the creativity of the nonprofit community but most importantly dispel the myth that nonprofits cannot operate as good businesses. Nonprofit social enterprises pursue a “double bottom line” of social impact and net revenues, and the generation of new and diverse income streams offers long-term sustainability to their charitable missions.

For example, Harbor City Services, Inc is a Baltimore based warehouse business creating employment opportunities for individuals with psychiatric disabilities. It is a moving company that also provides record storage and service, brokerage and storage of used medical equipment. Started in 1987 by John Herron, the company employs 50 persons in full and part-time work, provides excellent customer service and is profitable. This successful social enterprise is evaluating an expansion that would involve exporting medical equipment and supplies to Africa in partnership with a for-profit medical education company specializing in satellite-delivered distance learning. Harbor City Services, Inc. proposes a collection and distribution center for donated medical equipment and supplies prepared for shipment overseas.

For more information contact SEA President Beth Bubis or John Herron of Harbor City Services at (410) 740-9173