DelCo business earns SCORE award

Posted by Rich Schwartzman on June 14, 2018

Anton Dell’Orefice, owner of Delightful Detail in Concord Township, addresses members and guests of SCORE during a lunchtime award ceremony at Concord Country Club. With him is his wife Christina.

Anton Dell’Orefice, owner of Delightful Detail in Concord Township, is one of five winners of the 2018 SCORE’s Small Business Achievement award. He and the others received the honors during a June 14 business lunch at the Concord Country Club.

Dell’Orefice is a member of the Chadds Ford Business Association and Western Delaware County Business Professionals Association. The business — now 10 years old — focuses on embroidery, screen printing and laser engraving.

SCORE, originally known as Service Corps of Retired Executives, is a nonprofit organization providing mentoring services for new and small businesses and is a resource partner with the U. S. Small Business Association.

"I’m just glad to be moving forward. I ask SCORE for help, and I keep moving ahead. SCORE gives you the ability to talk to someone," Dell’Orefice said.

He told the lunchtime crowd that he bought an embroidery machine, quit his job, and 11 days later his wife gave birth to their first child.

Mentor John Ralston told a brief story of his first meeting with Dell’Orefice that came a few years later. He said the business was being run out of the family’s basement, and now they had four daughters. "I knew Anton needed help before those daughters became teenagers."

Other winners of this year’s award from the Delaware and Chester County chapter are Two Gander farm in Downingtown, Dynamic Home Therapy of Wayne, Grandma Zook’s Bakery and Produce of West Vincent Township and Soulscapes of Downingtown.

Catherine Kelly, the director of organization development for SCORE, said SCORE helped create 54,000 new businesses that created 61,000 new jobs in 2017. Of SCORE’s clients, 60 percent are women, 39 percent are minorities and 11 percent are veterans, she said.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.