In honor of the extraordinary dedication to adults with disabilities and life challenges, AEI proudly recognizes the following award recipients.

Community Advocate of the Year Award

AEI is very proud to announce the recipient of our 2017 Community Advocate of the Year Award was given to Representative Betty Poirier. Betty has always been an advocate for individuals with disabilities in our community. Whenever we’ve needed assistance on a local or state level, Betty has responded with quick, thoughtful action.
Betty has addressed individuals in our Transitions Program at Fisher College sharing her own work experiences and inspiring our young work force. Betty regularly visits our program participants who clean local parks and playgrounds, hand out lunches, and recycle shoes etc. as volunteers. She continually thanks them for their work in our community.
Betty always attends AEI events including our Annual Meeting and Alive After Five. She addresses the individuals we support with dignity.

Representative Betty Poirier is the epitome of sincerity in dealing with vulnerable members of our constituency.

Ernest H. Augat Award

Through extraordinary, yet humble, generosity, Mr. Augat helped others achieve their life goals. This award is presented to Ron Levesque for demonstrating strength and character in achieving personal success which emulates the manner in which Mr. Augat lived his distinguished life.

Ron became part of the AEI Residential family back in 2001. Prior to that, Ron lived with his brother Wayne after his adoring mother passed away. Ron moved into Gardner’s Neck Road along with three other gentlemen, and with time, they became extremely close and would refer to themselves as “one family”. Ron was very independent and did everything for himself. He enjoyed living in the home and would like to leave food out for the neighborhood skunk.

After several years, Ron along with his roommates moved to an apartment setting program, but after significant, declining health and mobility issues, Ron ended up in a nursing home for over a year. Through it all, Ron kept his feisty disposition and came to grips that he would need to rely on others for more assistance. AEI purchased and adapted a home that was made accessible in order for Ron to move back in. Ron moved into Sullivan Ave along with three other roommates almost 4 years ago. After many years of smoking, Ron quit this year. Ron was diagnosed a heart condition, has suffered and continues to suffer from multiple compression fractures due to osteoporosis. Still-Ron remains spirited and makes his needs and wants clearly known.

Ron earlier in the year began advocating for himself, expressing his desire to not attend his adult day care program 5 full days per week. AEI heard Ron loud and clear, and supported Ron with advocating and pursuing other options. As a result Ron is AEI’s first Agency With Choice participant, where Ron can have a say of what he wants to do, how he wants to do it, and who he wants to support him.

John Alves Employee of the Year Award

The 2017 John Alves Employee of the Year Award is presented to Zachary Howe for exemplary attendance, positive attitude, empathy for others, and demonstrated achievement.

Zach has been involved with AEI since 2012 when he joined our Transitions Program as a student. In his first year in the Transitions program his job coaches noted, “Zach is hard worker who sees his tasks through to completion.”

In 2015 Zach left high school and AEI Job Coaches had identified Zach as appropriate and prepared for community employment. When one of our previous Alves and Augat award winners, Paul Metzger was preparing to retire from Larson Tool, AEI staff was confident that we had an outstanding candidate to fill Paul’s shoes.

Bill Jordan, Human Resource Manager at Larson Tool, said of Zach: “I just want to make sure that the people at Attleboro Enterprises realize what a great person Zachary Howe is. We’re so glad that you matched him with Larson Tool & Stamping Company. Zach is very always punctual. He is here on time and his work completed so that he can leave on time. He seemed to take to the environment right away. We’re a stamping factory, so the environment can be pretty noisy. That didn’t faze Zach. He always wears his safety glasses, earplugs and steel toed boots. Zach has also learned to be self-directed. When he started, he would wait until the manager was ready to give him his assignment for the day. We soon saw that could get frustrating, so the manager set up responsibilities Zach could work on in case the manager was busy and couldn’t give an assignment right away. Now, when Zach comes in, he checks to see if the manager is available. If not, Zach knows where to go, what to check on and what to do. Zach likes to be productive and prefers not to have to wait to be given an assignment. We’re hoping that Zach stays at Larson for a long time.”