Life & Work with Mary Angelini of Raleigh

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Angelini

Hi Mary, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m Mary, and together with my daughter, Gabi Angelini, we are the proud Co-Founders of Gabi’s: Powered by Special Abilities. Our journey began with a simple yet powerful realization—despite Gabi’s passion for service, dedication, and vibrant personality, traditional employment opportunities were often out of reach due to widespread discrimination against adults with special abilities. This challenge sparked our mission to drive change.

In Wake County alone, 68,000 individuals live with disabilities, yet only 18% are employed. Gabi and I are determined to rewrite this narrative by empowering as many people as possible.
Today, through our nonprofit companies, we are proud to employ over 40 individuals, each contributing meaningfully to our mission.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
In the beginning in 2017 we realized that even though Gabi is a highly functioning woman, with a killer personality and tons of love inside her, nobody wanted to hire her. She went to many interviews and we both realized this was a dead end. She wanted to own her own restaurant, saving all her money to go towards it, we discussed it and I said I cannot do a restaurant but I can do a coffee shop and Gabi’s Grounds Coffee was born. We raised money and became well known in the community and we were even were flown to LA to be on the Kelly Clarkson show, but we never raised enough to start a coffee shop. So when the pandemic hit God called us into the Loading Dock warehouse, and we realized we could employ more people and have better working hours if we pivoted to a packaging, fulfillment company, so Gabi’s Pals (Packaging, Assembling, Labeling, Shipping) was born.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We employee people with Special Abilities, i.e. Autism, Down Syndrome, Blind, etc. and we empower them through employment. We have jobs thru Gabi’s Pals that are repetitive tasks that they love doing. We are very good at Kitting, Labeling, Relabeling, Cleaning items, assembling notebooks, we even sand, stain and seal wood for giant jenga sets. We can do anything! We have a team that is dedicated to Quality Control, nothing leaves our warehouse without it being run by them, they are perfectionists and perfect for this role.

I am proud of how we unlocked their potential, for example one of our employees was extremely shy and didnt talk much, but the confidence he received by working for us and eventually we put him on a team offsite at one of our clients to do some robotic work for them, he felt so confident in his ability that he went to night school and is graduating with a degree in cyber security.

How do you think about luck?
I do not believe in luck, I believe in God and he has called me into working to empower these adults with special abilities. I am blessed to have a daughter with Down Syndrome that can show the world what is possible when you give people a chance.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.poweredbygabis.org
• Instagram: GabisRaleigh
• Facebook: Gabi’s:Powered by Special Abilities
• LinkedIn: Gabi’s Powered by Special Abilities