Jobs in the community

[Guest guest]

Thais:

The good and the bad news...if your school district sets up a business it would

be great for the students, but it probably wouldn't serve students once they

graduate.

The best possible scenario is working with local businesses to create job

opportunities in the community...but we all know how hard that is...

I think creating public and private partnerships works as another alternative.

In Glenview, the park district was willing to partner with several families to

create a business at their multi-purpose recreation center...it has been

extremely well received and very successful..they are now competitively

employing about eighteen young adults with I/DD and they are also a training

site for our local special education cooperative, NSSED.

I am working on a similar project in Highland Park. They have a shuttered

concession stand at their ice arena. A group of eight moms are opening up the

concession on weekends, starting January 7th. We have hired twenty-three young

adults with I/DD to work one to two hour shifts. They will be making minimum

wage. I will keep everyone posted on how that goes. We had our first

fundraiser at the beginning of December. We have been working hard to clean and

set up the concession and find all kinds of resources within our circle of

friends...attorneys, accountants, people in the restaurant business in order to

get as much pro bono advice as possible. We have worked with a local fast food

restaurateur to create the menu and to connect with vendors. We spent

countless hours interviewing employees and creating policies and procedures. We

have our job coach/employee orientation and training on Thursday evening of this

coming week. We have filed our 501 ©3...

All of this has been done within the past several months! I will keep you all

posted on how it goes!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

Ellen

Ellen Garber Bronfeld

egskb@...