MILWAUKEE (SPECTRUM NEWS) — Indeed Brewing Company CEO Tom Whisenand brought his charity initiative, Indeed We Can, to the new Milwaukee taproom after seeing it work for seven years at the Minneapolis headquarters.

“I love it just because it’s so simple,” Whisenand said. “It wasn’t created in some big marketing office.”

Indeed has around 90 full-time employees between two locations. Every Wednesday a different worker gets to choose a local non-profit to donate that night’s net proceeds. The initiative is simple, and it works.

“It’s just this idea to empower your employees to make a choice and partner with people in the community,” Whisenand said.

This week a bartender at the Milwaukee location chose Islands of Brilliance as the Indeed We Can beneficiary. IOB is a learning center where young adults with autism explore creativity through technology, learning design software and working with professional clients to help increase the likelihood of independent adulthood.

Spectrum News 1 visited IOB before the staff headed to Indeed Wednesday night. Instructor Amy Mason was introducing her digital academy students to next semester’s big project: designing and building a video game.

Garrett Scott, a 21-year-old from Milwaukee, was outfitted in a full-body motion capture suit, which recorded his every move with the use of 32 sensors. He has worked with IOB for more than three years, proving to be one of the workshop’s most creative designers. He is one of the digital students recognized as a higher-level learner, and his enthusiasm for the new project showed with his huge smile during the mo-cap demonstration.

Scott’s progress is one of the dozens of success stories fulfilling Mark and Margaret Fairbanks’ vision when they founded IOB in 2012. It also leaves no question as to why a brewery worker down the street would choose to support Islands of Brilliance.