“Our product may be dog treats, but our mission is to provide daily purpose for adults with a wide range of intellectual and developmental disabilities." 

- Kelly Maffei, Co-Founder, Program Director


About Team Woofgang & Co.

Team Woofgang & Co. was founded in 2017 by Kelly Maffei, Amy Stern and Kris Burbank, three Fairfield mothers of adults with disabilities looking to provide daily purpose for their young adults about to leave their state provided educational programs. Their mission was to provide job-skills and vocational training for disabled adults who had aged out of public school system support. It became imperative to provide a solution that was non-diagnosis specific that met the individual where they were ability-wise. Their concern was the lack of programs and services available for their loved ones after they turned 21. While individuals with special needs receive an abundance of support during their primary and secondary education - such as educational, social, and transportation services - these resources abruptly come to an end after public school system support ends at 22 years of age. Our mission serves to bridge this gap by providing individualized vocational training, lifelong learning, and social opportunities to adults with a wide range of intellectual and developmental disabilities, free of charge, and support their families and communities to help them live the fullest of lives through our two-tiered curriculum. We achieve this through the utilization of baking and selling dog treats and other novelty items.

With a production facility located in Bridgeport, CT and a retail location on Post Road in Fairfield, CT, our Team Members come from all over Fairfield County, and other surrounding counties. Nearly half of our members come as self-directed.  All of them are recipients of our free vocational training. Through our retail and production curriculums, participants receive customized training in a safe, commercial kitchen. They learn skills like supply management, packaging, quality assurance standards, fine motor skills, reading, math, and general life and social skills. Team Woofgang is also committed to raising awareness of our mission by participating in local farmer’s markets, fairs, and festivals. Inclusion and accessibility are the core tenets of our mission and we are proud to offer this programming to all participants for free and regardless of socioeconomic status.

Team Woofgang & Co is the answer to the question - what comes next?

Our Curriculum

Our curriculums offers the perfect blend of “push-in” to the real world and “pull-out” for our Team Members. We are constantly striving to improve upon and grow our curriculum to better serve current and future Team Members.

Production

At our production facility, our team members are introduced to and instructed on a variety of skills necessary for the successful making of dog treats, no-sew pet blankets and pet toys. They prepare and bake our products while learning skills including quality control and kitchen safety.

Our focused skill-development can consist of food prep, kitchen safety, cleanliness, and functional life skills. Everything learned in the bakery, from measuring ingredients to custodial to laundry can be applied to the individual’s home life.

Retail

At our retail store, our team members are provided with ample opportunity to exercise their ability to read, perform math, and to make use of both fine and gross motor skills.

Our focused skill-development can consist of communication, shop keeping, marketing, office tasks, e-commerce, technology use and general life skills.

We recognize that our team members have an ability to be life-long learners, but we also honor their disabilities and make it a point to revisit the skills they have mastered. Repetition of skills learned is a key to their ongoing success. With everything we do our goal is for each individual to grow in some way, whether it’s becoming more social, gaining a new life skill, financial literacy, etc.

Social Opportunities

  • Raising Community Awareness

    We are committed to raising awareness of our mission by participating in local farmer’s markets, fairs, and festivals.

  • Game Nights & Sporting Events

    We participate in game nights and sporting events and have active relationships with local high schools and universities.

  • Friendship

    True friendships have been born out of this simply as a by-product of how we operate.