Soap Story
My husband is not a soap snob. As long as the soap I buy doesn’t have a floral scent, he will use it!
But he has a thing about not using the last bit of the bar. So, when it gets too small for his taste, he simply sets it aside. The below picture is what I see in the shower until I do something with the small pieces of soap.
The other day when I looked at those various pieces of soap he has cast aside, I thought about the fact that they’re still good, they still have purpose, and as long as we know how to use them correctly, they are worth having around! When I was younger my mom would put small pieces of soap like that in an old nylon and hang it from a shower caddy. We would then rub our hands on it and it would lather up just like it was intended to. It was a great use for those unwanted pieces of soap.
People who have disabilities are sometimes pushed off to the side like those small pieces of soap. When they don’t fit the mold, we just feel like we don’t have any use for them. When they look different, we aren’t sure how to relate to them. But, just like those pieces of soap, they are very useful and have purpose! Sometimes we have to think outside the box, but they can have a long and purposeful life, too.
We have to keep in mind that God has created us all with a unique set of gifts and talents and abilities and disabilities. It is our job to glorify Him through each of those. I also feel that is our responsibility to help others find their purpose and ways to glorify God through their abilities and disabilities.
Next Step Training Program is just one of the ways we can help those with a disability find their calling and purpose!
Resource: Virginia Commonwealth University
As I was searching the internet for resources to improve our program, I "stumbled" upon the Virginia Commonwealth University site. They have some incredible resources that address a myriad of issues that people with disabilities face applying for jobs, getting jobs and keeping jobs. It is also a phenomenal resource for businesses who are willing to hire those with disabilities. It is a win-win situation much of the time if both parties are knowledgeable about how to make necessary accommodations when necessary and have the communication lines open about the onboarding and mentoring needs of the employee.
While reading some articles posted and listening to some free webinars that are offered, I realized that when we are at the stage of helping these young adults interview for a job, we have numerous resources to point their prospective employer to! Also, I was unaware of how beneficial it is for employers to hire those with disabilities of any kind. Retention is much higher, customer satisfaction and loyalty is higher and employee hiring base is larger!
Here is one sample of what is available on the website:
https://vcurrtc.org/resources/viewContent.cfm/1376
There are resources there that will help parents, students, businesses, therapists, teachers and support personnel.
What an amazing website, thank you Virginia Commonwealth University!
An Idea!
As Susan and her husband, Bill, were coming to terms with their son’s diagnosis of Asperger’s, they made the decision to go to an autism convention that had come to Louisville. Susan went to a breakout session that was about students with autism learning the necessary job skills for employment while working on a farm!
Because she grew up on a farm, she knew the amazing benefits of working in the dirt, lifting bales of hay, planting and harvesting and the myriad of other chores to be done! She was sure that a program like this is what would be the next step in her journey of life. She connected with the “director of the program” who turned out to be a dad whose son was working on a farm and doing very well and who was convinced that this could be a great program.
She called me, Suellen, from the conference and told me all about this farming program and was almost in tears because she was so excited! Together we talked about how good this could be and that my husband had talked about wanting to be a farmer and how neat that would be to spend the rest of our working days on the farm.
Fast forward a year or so, Susan kept researching how to make a program like this successful. Together we contacted a few farms who were training those with special needs. We heard stories that were really encouraging, but we still weren’t sure how this was going to work here. Greg and I had the God given opportunity to work on a hobby farm and were given full reign over the massive garden with training from the farmers.
In December of 2017, we had our first board meeting! We were following leads to using farm land and building a house and living on the farm where the program would happen.
That next spring, we had the unique privilege of selling our harvest at the local farmer’s market and although some veggies were sold, it was a slow and frustrating time. Our harvest was pitiful and because we were trying to farm organically, bugs were a huge problem! We had a lot of head knowledge because we read a lot of books and watched a lot of videos on how to successfully farm organically, we just didn’t have green thumbs. Mine is actually a shade of black!
Toward the end of the market season in 2018, Susan and I had a long conversation about the direction of the program because I was very discouraged about our lack of farming prowess and the bleak outlook on actually making enough money by selling fruits and vegetables to sustain a program. It was during that conversation that God revealed to us that Greg and I were not meant to be farmers, we were meant to cook and run a restaurant! What had happened at the market was that I got my sampling license which meant that Greg could make a recipe that included an ingredient that we grew and we could sample it to our customers. What we discovered was that people wanted to buy the cooked food and not the raw ingredients.
We decided that we could probably incorporate both the farming (because the students would still learning so much through it) and the restaurant (because this is what we know and the students would learn a lot through it)!
In the summer of 2019, Greg and I and the other board members all participated in the farmer’s market again, only this time, we sold cooked food (yes, we got a temporary food license) and it was a hit! We developed a customer base that loved our food and that was aware of our ultimate goal of using a restaurant and a farm to help young adults gain the skills necessary to secure gainful employment.
In essence, we are still on the first steps of our journey, but the plan is more focused by focusing on young adults with mild to moderate autism, and more integrated by including cognitive skills training, vestibular therapy, parent training and vocational training. We are on the cusp of putting our preliminary program into play and although it feels like a long time coming, God has been behind the timing the entire time! He knew what we needed to learn and what needed to happen in order to be successful in helping these very special young adults.