OUR HISTORY

The sudden and unfortunate passing of Paul C. Kitsos leads his family to create the Nicholas Center for Autism (named for his one and only son) along with its employment initiative, Spectrum Designs Foundation.

Co-founders Stella Spanakos, Nicole Sugrue and Patrick Bardsley form a pilot program with a skeleton crew: two teens on the Autism Spectrum, and a single piece of equipment in a converted barn behind Stella’s Long Island home.

Orders come flying in. Demand for the service and the apparel with a clear, important message is higher than we could have ever imagined! Spectrum gathers momentum to employ production and educational directors.

Spectrum expands, with the ability to offer even more gainful employment opportunities to young adults on the Autism Spectrum by producing customized apparel. Families, community members and local schools support the new effort. Our partner organization, The Nicholas Center make their first major purchase – a 500 sq ft building (The House) where a whole room(!) can be devoted to Spectrum Designs operations. The Nicholas Center conducts life skills classes upstairs.

Doubling our service capacity and tripling our sales, we move to a 1,500 square foot location in the Community Chest building in Port Washington. Spectrum’s annual sales reach the $250,000 mark.

Spectrum Designs invests in state-of-the-art embroidery, digital and screen-printing technology that our highly trained workers operate.

From hooping to thread breaks, new skills are taught to participants and another string is added to Spectrum’s bow.

Our second social media campaign, United Spectrum of the World, gets people from all over the WORLD involved. With snaps from Afghanistan to Zurich we had a different country represented every day for a whole month.

Spectrum Designs' first annual Golf Outing raises $50,000 in September 2014. Spectrum doubles its sales AGAIN! With gross sales of almost $500,000, Spectrum becomes the go-to T-shirt printing and apparel customization business for most of the school districts and big businesses in the area. Plans for further expansion have already begun.

Addition of an automatic print press updates our screen printing technology. Production dramatically increases by 500%. The upgrade in equipment creates more hours of direct labor for our employees, increasing output capacity and enabling Spectrum to be more competitive on price, volume, and consistency. Two new full time employees are hired, a screen print machine operator and a direct-to-garment machine operator, through ACCES-VR.

Affiliate businesses -- Spectrum Bakes and Spectrum Suds -- are now established brand identities with happy repeat customers. Spectrum Designs shows growth of almost 50% from 2015. Adding $500,000 in sales, the apparel business finishes the year at over $1.4m in gross sales and gains several major customers, including a first-of-its-kind partnership with Autism Speaks for their national walk program – printing & shipping over 54,000 shirts across all 50 states. Designs provides 320 weekly hours of paid employment to 19 workers on the Autism Spectrum – a 130% increase from 2015. In partnership with the Nicholas Center, an increase of 66% to 580 hours/week of authentic vocational training was provided to 31 high school students. Spectrum’s total reach – 60 individuals and their families, a 40% increase from the previous year. The possibility of purchasing a building becomes reality. The Believe Capital Expansion Campaign is launched. Discussions and negotiations follow, a contract is signed and Spectrum acquires a 7,500 square foot building just steps away from the current location.

Spectrum officially owns a building – 366 Main Street in Port Washington, NY. Thanks to successful fundraising events and the Believe Capital Expansion Campaign, Phase II – construction and renovation begins. Spectrum Designs shows growth of almost 60% from 2016 and adds $1,000,000 in sales. The apparel business finishes the year at $2.4M in gross sales. Metro-North Railroad hires Spectrum to create 5,000 Hi-Visibility safety jackets in bright orange for its railroad employees. Working in a space of a mere 1,500 square feet, the project takes a tremendous amount of coordination and team work!

Spectrum officially moves into the new flagship location, tripling production space and hiring capabilities. The client list has grown to include: Uber, Google, NYU Langone Medical Center, Northwell Health, St. John’s University Law School, and MTA Metro North. At year’s end, Spectrum Designs has impacted the lives of 70 individuals and their families and created over 15,000 paid hours of meaningful work for individuals on the Autism Spectrum.

We are on the move! Spectrum Designs signs the lease on a 8,000 square foot facility in Pleasantville, New York. Our first client to be printed will be 5,500 pieces for the MTA Metro North Railroad. Spectrum Bakes' business doubles in the holiday season, keeping the team busy baking, packaging, and shipping. A popular item being The Better Bar, our new and improved granola bar. Spectrum Suds triples business, gaining and retaining 70 weekly/biweekly clients. Suds also gained stackable washers due to a generous grant from the Manhasset Community Fund.

Challenging as 2020 was, we managed to make exceptional strides growing across all enterprises: Spectrum Designs, Spectrum Bakes, and Spectrum Suds. We completed the expansion on a second location in Pleasantville, NY and in partnership with The Nicholas Center, took the reach of our organization to new heights. The same partnership welcomed eleven graduates from our first Screen Print Certification Course. Finally, We managed to create 7 new jobs for individuals on the Autism Spectrum – expanding our neurodiverse workforce to 51 people by year’s end.

During the COVID-19 spoke, Designs acquired and distributed vital PPE – some 250,000 units – from trusted vendors for first responders, businesses, and community members, making the decision to leverage existing suppliers and keep costs low for those in need. Through a board sponsored initiative, Bakes donated over 2,000 granola bars to hospital workers at Northwell LIJ, North Short University Hospital and Elmhurst Hospital Center, where were also placed in specialized grieving centers. Suds Offered free laundry service to first responders during the height of the pandemic and laundered hand-made face masks for “The Mask Brigade” project through the Port Washington Community Chest. In 2020, Suds donated almost 10,000 lbs. of laundry to our community.

Despite the continuing impact of Covid-19, Spectrum’s enterprises all experienced growth and expansion in 2021. Our newly renovated Westchester location sprung to life, generating 8 new jobs and reaching over 300,000 imprints in the first year! Spectrum Designs’ Port Washington location thrived also, adding 6 new jobs and slowly but surely shifting away from PPE orders back to apparel and promotional items. Spectrum Suds added 95 new (repeat) clients, created new employment and training opportunities, and averaged over 1,000 lbs. of laundry per week! Finally, Spectrum Bakes had a record-breaking holiday season, shipping out over 50,000 bars and bags of granola!

In 2022, Spectrum Designs achieved significant milestones in our mission to create inclusive employment opportunities. We welcomed 29 new team members, including 14 individuals on the Autism Spectrum and/or with disabilities. This brought our total team size to 77 employees, spread across 3 businesses and 2 counties, with approximately 60% representing diverse abilities.

Thanks to the ongoing efforts of our team, we managed to gross nearly $7 million in revenue over the course of the year!

In 2023, Spectrum Designs expanded it’s reach further than ever. Promotions, new talent, and exciting opportunities set the stage for an unforgettable year.

We hired 10 new staff members, and created over 65,000 hours of neurodiverse employment, in addition to over 9,000 hours of vocational training.

Click here to see all of the highlights from 2023.

2024 was an historic year for Spectrum Designs. We generated over 69,000 hours of paid employment, welcomed 10 new members to the Spectrum family, and celebrated the promotions of four team members to new roles.

Our team went viral on social media with one of our videos reaching over 25 million views and our accounts growing by more than 100,000 followers. We received countless messages about how our mission is inspiring people all around the world.

Finally, we proudly earned certification from the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP), joining an elite group of just 75 organizations worldwide to exceed government environmental standards. Spectrum Designs is honored to be the only nonprofit to achieve this prestigious distinction, proving that we are redefining doing good with our SustainABLE initiatives.

Click here to see all of the highlights from 2024.