Sandra Witas, manager of Hope Association’s Briar Patch, stands Wednesday in the greenhouse. The Mexico business that helps adults and students with disabilities is closing for good Saturday. Bruce Farrin/Rumford Falls Times

MEXICO — The Briar Patch, a greenhouse business that helped local people with disabilities learn skills, gain independence and get financial support, is shutting its doors for good Saturday.

Founded in 2000 by the Hope Association in Rumford, it enjoyed success that led to construction of a larger, more technologically advanced greenhouse in 2017 at 85 Highland Terrace.

Sandra Witas, manager of Briar Patch, said Wednesday that all proceeds are intended to benefit association participants.

For most of its existence, the greenhouse has taught skills such as planting, watering, care of plants and customer service in a partnership with the association. However, Witas said participants stopped working in the greenhouse before the 2020 pandemic because of directives from the Department of Health and Human Services.

“All our participants and residents have a support professional with them,” she said. “Those hours get billed for the person with them to DHHS, and they get paid from that. DHHS is saying, and telling not just us, that if our people are here with their support professional, they’re getting money from that, helping us to make a profit. So that is considered double-dipping.

“The way that we could have gotten around that is to pay our people to be here,” she said. “If I have somebody here filling pots, and his support person is with him, he needs to get paid to do that. Otherwise, all the pots he’s filled because he enjoys filling pots, I need to dump them out when he leaves.”

The memories, Witas said, “were the best part of it. I did get to work with them and get to know them. You know, when they see me in public, they know where I’m from.”

Before the pandemic, participants and residents had shown great joy working in the greenhouse, she said. “And many of the customers, especially before Mother’s Day, purchased flowers and plants not only to support Hope Association, but to visit with those working in the greenhouse.

“Everybody asks, ‘where are they? Why aren’t they here?'” she said.

Lorinda Skehan, executive director for Hope Association, said Thursday, “It’s really heartbreaking. It’s going to be heartbreaking for the community as well.”

“It’s too bad that the state didn’t recognize the purpose that it gave them,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of job opportunities here in the community, or things that they can do … That, to them, was so fulfilling. They absolutely loved every moment of it.”

Skehan said, “Unfortunately, we never profited from the greenhouse. We lost money every year. No matter how many things had been tried, the overhead to maintain that building alone was astronomical.”

Without the participants working there, the purpose for that business was gone, she said. “It makes no sense to keep something going when the ultimate purpose was missing.”