Author: Ferguson

Trine University and Easterseals have joined forces to empower individuals with disabilities through the Pre-Manufacturing Academy. This innovative program offers students the opportunity to develop essential skills, gain hands-on experience, and build the confidence needed to succeed in the manufacturing industry.

Building Bridges to Success

The Pre-Manufacturing Academy provides students with direct exposure to modern manufacturing techniques and industry best practices. Participants engage with state-of-the-art tools, learn technical skills, and receive guidance from industry professionals. This two-week intensive course offers a structured environment where students can develop the proficiency required to thrive in today’s workforce.

During the program, participants learned vital safety principles, workplace safety, and emergency preparedness specific to manufacturing. They also explored the importance of accurate measurements, math, and their applications in environmental safety. Education included reading and understanding basic blueprints, blueprint scales, floor plans, and project applications—equipping participants with the foundational skills necessary for success in the manufacturing field.

The first-ever Pre-Manufacturing session concluded successfully at Easterseals Arc, marking a significant milestone for the program. The next session is scheduled for February at Cardinal Services, with plans for ongoing classes to ensure more students can benefit from this valuable opportunity.

Looking Ahead: Customized Employer-Specific Programs in 2025

In 2025, Easterseals Northern Indiana plans to expand its offerings by introducing a customized training program tailored to employers’ specific hiring needs. This initiative will focus on working directly with manufacturers to design training that addresses the unique requirements of their businesses, helping them build a skilled and inclusive workforce. By aligning training with industry demands, the program aims to support both employers and individuals with disabilities in achieving their goals.

Jason Meyer, director of business partnerships and strategic initiatives, shared his enthusiasm for this collaboration, stating:
“The partnership between Easterseals Northern Indiana and Trine University is amazing! We have worked together in expanding employment, enriching education, enhancing health, and elevating community. We are excited to continue this partnership in 2025 and look forward to the possibilities to come!”

Inclusive Education for a Diverse Workforce

Trine University’s commitment to academic excellence, combined with Easterseals’ dedication to serving individuals with disabilities, has created an inclusive learning environment. The Academy not only emphasizes technical training but also promotes self-sufficiency, career readiness, and the confidence to explore new career pathways. This holistic approach prepares students to meet the demands of an evolving manufacturing industry.

Transforming Lives Through Collaboration

The partnership between Trine University and Easterseals highlights the power of collaboration. By combining their expertise, they are creating a program that promotes diversity, inclusion, and opportunity. Students leave the Academy with more than just technical skills; they gain the independence and self-assurance needed to pursue meaningful careers.

With periodic Academy sessions at Easterseals Arc, Cardinal Services, and other partner organizations, the Academy is offering students continuous learning opportunities. Each class brings a new group of students closer to achieving their personal and professional goals.

A Vision for the Future

As manufacturing evolves, initiatives like the Pre-Manufacturing Academy play a crucial role in bridging the gap between education and industry. By equipping students with disabilities to learn new skills and explore professional opportunities, this collaboration is fostering a more inclusive and diverse workforce.

Through this partnership, Trine University and Easterseals demonstrate the power of investing in people. The Academy creates sustained opportunities for students to develop vital skills, build confidence, and prepare for rewarding careers. Together, they are paving the way for a brighter, more inclusive future for individuals with disabilities in the manufacturing industry.

About once a month, kids from Easterseals Northeast Indiana’s Mini Dreamers and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Fort Wayne meet for fun, crafts, or visits to area attractions. Whatever activity is on their agenda, their mission is having fun and getting to know each other.

This is the second school year that kids from the two clubs have met in a program they themselves named Buddies Without Borders.

The goal is “to build friendships between kids, whether they have a disability or not,” Easterseals Northeast Indiana staff member Danielle Jones explained. “It’s giving Boys & Girls Club kids, where they may not have a lot of experience or interaction with kids with disabilities, a chance to realize that even though they’re not typical, we can be friends with them.”

Although attendance fluctuates a bit, there are about a dozen young people in Buddies without Borders. They are middle-school or older elementary school students. The group is about evenly divided among participants from each of the two organizations.

At a meeting in February 2024, the youths played a game that was really an approach to learning about one another, a kind of subtle tutoring in the art of conversation. In small groups, they answered questions such as, “What would you do if you won a lottery?” Then the follow-up: Young people revealed what they learned about the others, from their instincts for generosity to their favorite tourist destinations.

After they finished, they all regathered around a large table for an edible craft: decorating cookies for Valentine’s Day.

“It’s helping build (the young people’s) sense of inclusion for people with disabilities and without disabilities,” said Blair Cottier, the inclusion director for Boys & Girls Clubs of Northeast Indiana. “Some of our kids (in Boys & Girls Club) have never been around kids with disabilities, so we are trying to make sure these kids are exposed to all different kinds of people, all different kinds of events, all different kinds of things.”

Bringing people together from both clubs succeeds well enough for the kids to mingle smoothly and have fun during their meetings. And there are signs it might extend beyond the meetings.

Abby, one of the Mini Dreamers, told her mother that Jayla, from the Boys & Girls Club, was one of her friends when they saw Jayla at a store. Later Abby also said her favorite part of the meetings is being with Angel, a member of the Boys & Girls Club. Both Cottier and Jones said Abby and Angel had exchanged phone numbers, and the girls had contacted one another outside the Buddies meetings.

The activities – and the way the adult leaders choose them – make a difference, too. The adults try to give the kids as much say as possible in choosing what they do.

Mini Dreamer Noah says that he likes making decorations the best, whether cookies for Valentine’s Day or Christmas cards for people who live in Kingston. Abby said she likes the arts and crafts best, next to spending time with Angel.

“I like helping out people,” said Jayla, from the Boys & Girls Club. “I like making people laugh and having fun.”

Angel, now in her second year of Buddies, said, “It’s really cool to interact with people I usually wouldn’t and to learn about people with disabilities.”

On a typical weekday, four Easterseals Passages participants immerse themselves in making art. For an hour or more, each person works with Jamie Hyser, the art instructor, producing and polishing drawings and paintings in a studio at Easterseals Passages’ Creative Learning Center.

Art is popular at Easterseals Passages, and staff members have helped people create art for years. Working on art with participants one-on-one is Hyser’s job.

Among the work recently:

• Chester, who loves trucks and tractors, traced a drawing of a six-wheeled vehicle on a light table.
• Doug painted parts of a drawing of a drum set. Hyser helped him add striking red accents to it.
• Barbara filled in details and color in an enlarged drawing of wood nymphs in a forest.
• Josh used the light table to trace an illustration of a phoenix.
• Larry, who enjoys combining basic geometric shapes in artwork, worked on a stylized race car built of circles, triangles and rectangles.

Hyser has enjoyed making art since she was a child. Not long after she started working as a Direct Support Professional at Easterseals Passages 10 years ago, she began helping people create art. She saw that encouraging people to make art was already a tradition there, though it was typically done in large groups. She couldn’t wait to merge her professional duties and personal hobby.

“Man, I want to teach art! I love art!” Hyser, 39, remembers thinking. Over time, she was able to begin the one-on-one instruction she does now.

The instruction is tailored to each individual. For example, she may break down the series of decisions in creating a painting into many separate choices she offers each artist. For people who like particular images or designs but lack drawing skills, she may render an image in broad strokes and have them trace it on a light table before painting it.

Some artists speak up boldly as Hyser collaborates with them in turning an idea into a painting. Barbara, for example, came to her with a photo of a small sketch of two wood spirits, male and female, embracing and enfolded in trees. Hyser enlarged the drawing, adding details, such as a mouth on the male spirit. As for that male spirit, he clearly ought to be “goldish brown,” Barbara insisted. “He’s a wood nymph,” she said. “He was a tree. He came from a tree!”

The slow magic of turning people’s imaginings into big, bold artwork brings rewards for Hyser every day.

“I like giving them the opportunity to create things they thought they might not be able to,” she said.

It’s become a weekly getaway for many of the people who take part in day services at Easterseals Northeast Indiana’s Projects Drive Group. Every Friday, four to eight participants, accompanied by one or two staff members, make the half-hour drive north to the JAM Center, short for Judy A. Morrill Recreation Center, in Garrett.

They volunteer at the center by doing thinks like cleaning a meeting room or play equipment around the swimming pool. Then they enjoy themselves with any of many activities there, such as swimming or lifting weights. They wrap up with lunches they packed for the trip.

“It’s fun!” says Domesha, who overcame her nervousness about getting in the pool with help of Easterseals Northeast Indiana staff member Karmare Scruggs. He held her hand securely as she waded along the edge of the pool.

Aaron took a dip in the main pool, but soon settled into the 93-degree spa pool. He loves visiting the JAM Center.

“I think it’s better than the Y,” Aaron said. “I love being here. All they need to do is add some boxing gloves. Then you’d really get the party started!”

Matt also said he enjoys visiting the JAM Center. While the others enjoyed having the pool to themselves one afternoon, he lifted weights instead. He says he enjoys walking in the gym and playing volleyball, too.

More people in the Easterseals Northeast Indiana network are likely to become regulars at the JAM Center soon. Nikki Hile, a supervisor at Easterseals Northeast Indiana, said staff there also plan to begin weekly visits to the JAM Center with participants.

For one production, Nick will be transformed three times. He’ll first become one of the Three Pigs, then a guard protecting Lord Farquaad, then a knight imprisoned after failing to rescue Princess Fiona.

Nick, 20, loved performing in musicals at Woodlan High School. Now he has extended his drama career to community theater. He plays three roles in a production of “Shrek the Musical” at the Huber Opera House in Hicksville, Ohio, in shows Dec. 3, 4 and 5.

What draws him so strongly to acting?

“I get to perform on stage. I like being in the costume. I get to try to emote with the cast,” Nick said. “I’ve studied acting by watching films, like Tom Hanks films and (Leonardo) DiCaprio films.”

“He’s a movie buff. He’s a music buff. He could tell you a movie – who directed it, who produced it, who starred in it – for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of movies. He can do it off the top of his head,” said Toni Printzos, an Easterseals Arc behavior consultant who’s worked with Nick since he was in high school.

Printzos and his mother both encouraged him to try out for “Grease,” the first play he acted in during high school. Printzos said she hoped it could improve his confidence and social skills. He landed the part of Eugene, “the school nerd,” as Nick described the role. Acting clicked for him, and he went on to play roles in “The Addams Family” and “Seussical the Musical” at Woodlan.

“It’s just like he’s a different young man when he’s on stage,” Printzos said. “He just flourishes on stage. He memorizes his lines well. He gets into character. He can even do the different dialects the characters might use. … He’s animated. He’s engaged. He can’t wait to get to rehearsal.”

Last year, Printzos and Pat Bailey, another behavior consultant from Easterseals Arc who works with one of Nick’s friends, helped lead him into community theater. Printzos and Bailey took the two young men to a performance of “Beauty and the Beast” at the Huber Opera House.

A friend of Bailey’s was playing the Beast in that show. He talked with Nick after the show and later alerted him when CCBanks Productions chose “Shrek the Musical” as their 2022 show.

Nick attends the Transitions program at Easterseals Arc on Wednesdays and Fridays. He also works a morning shift at the Bob Evans restaurant in Fort Wayne on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. Someday, he would like to act in a Fort Wayne Civic Theatre production.

In a dress rehearsal, Nick carried off all three of his roles smoothly, including the costume changes. With a cast of only about 25 players, several actors juggle multiple roles.

Director Chris Banks is pleased with the way the play is shaping up, as well as Nick’s contributions.

“Nick is a really nice guy. It’s the first time he’s been in one of our productions. He’s done very well,” Banks said.

About the Show

Performances of “Shrek the Musical” are 7 p.m. Dec. 3 and 4 and 2 p.m. Dec. 5 at Huber Opera House, 157 E. High St., Hicksville, Ohio. A buffet dinner is available at 6 p.m. Dec. 3 and 4. Cost for dinner and the musical are $50 for adults, $25 for children 10 and younger. Tickets for just the show are $20 for adults and $15 for children 10 and younger.

As autumn turned chilly, housemates Barry, Matt and Steve harvested some of the last food from the garden they started in May 2022.

Throughout spring and summer, Easterseals Northeast Indiana staff member Kennard Taylor has been guiding the gardening of these men he supports at their home in northeast Fort Wayne.

They started small, with just a few dozen square feet of garden, some in raised beds, others directly in the earth of their backyard.

In the case of this garden, small turned out to be beautiful and bountiful. They’ve enjoyed a tremendous variety and abundance of food from that garden, including potatoes, sweet potatoes, bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, green beans, corn, asparagus, cucumbers, zucchini, shallots and eggplants. They also tried to grow pumpkins and watermelons, but they learned those need to be raised off the ground to succeed.

For Taylor, planting and tending this garden takes him back to his childhood, when his grandfather always grew food in a garden. “It connects me with my grandfather,” he said. Taylor has grown many gardens of his own – and tended many houseplants – as an adult.

When helping the roommates plan, plant and tend their garden, “I was trying to come up with things that are easy to grow, things that we like to eat and buy at the store, things that are healthy,” Taylor said.

The produce from their backyard has been part of their meals for months. In fact, they’ve raised so much that they’ve shared some of their vegetables with others at Easterseals Northeast Indiana.

Barry said his favorite part of gardening is “taking the peppers out,” referring to bell peppers. “And the hot ones, too,” he said, not forgetting the jalapeño peppers.

“We should have carrots, too!” Matt suggested.

“We could have some carrots next year,” Taylor said, not even questioning whether they would plant a garden next year.

Chauntesse Philpot loves to learn, and she works two jobs helping other people learn and overcome obstacles, too.

During the week, she teaches preschoolers in a Head Start program. On the weekends and some weekday evenings, she works as a Direct Support Professional for Easterseals Northeast Indiana.

“I can use my tools and my experiences I have in my classroom and apply it to some situations in working with a client. It kind of goes hand-in-hand sometimes,” she said. “My students have to be able to trust me and to want my help. The same thing goes with my clients when I’m in the home working with them.”

Those two jobs would be enough to occupy many people, but not Chauntesse (pronounced “SHAWN-tees”). Last year, she earned an associate degree in early childhood education. Now she’s working on a bachelor’s degree in education, with a minor in psychology, at Purdue University Fort Wayne.

After Philpot, 28, graduated from Paul Harding High School, she started studying to become a medical assistant. “I became bored with not doing anything during the day except going to school,” she said. She started helping in a day care run by a friend’s mother, and she loved working with the children.

Not long after she started working with preschoolers, a friend who worked with another agency dedicated to helping adults with disabilities persuaded her to try working as a DSP, too. She had some weekend shifts open, and Philpot agreed to try.

“I was like, ‘I’ve never done that. I don’t think I’d be good at it. I wouldn’t know what to do.’ But I just gave it a shot, and I started to love this, too,” she said.

She loved her clients, but over time she grew dissatisfied with working at the other agency. “I didn’t feel appreciated,” she said.

She’s worked at Easterseals Northeast Indiana for almost a year.

“I feel appreciated at Easterseals,” she said. “I get told, ‘You’re doing a great job. The clients like having you around.’ …  I love how everyone communicates so well with each other. I never feel like I don’t know what’s going on.”

Philpot has found that some of the techniques she’s learned in working with children help her with adults, too. One of the challenges a DSP often faces is communicating with consumers who are nonverbal. She sometimes encounters the same thing in preschool, where some children don’t speak much, either. For example, Burmese preschoolers often don’t hear English spoken in their homes and haven’t learned much English. With children who speak little, she often uses visual cue cards — a picture of a bathroom or a drink or a sad face — to help them express their needs or feelings.

With the adults Easterseals Northeast Indiana serves, she benefits from training. DSPs work training shifts with consumers to familiarize them with their habits, needs, likes and dislikes.

That training helps her work with Paul, a man who is nonverbal.

“With Paul, I feel like just because I know his likes and his interests, that helps me communicate with him,” Philpot said. Paul keeps his spending money in a small, brown envelope. When he shows her that envelope, “that means he wants to go out to Dollar Tree,” she said. On a recent Sunday, he carried around a clipping from a newspaper advertisement that showed school notebooks, so she knew he wanted to buy more notebooks and pens, favorite items for him.

“The best part of the job is that I get to be a part of meeting individuals from all walks of life,” she said. “I’m able to assist them in new milestones and exposing them to new growth opportunities. That’s what I really love about the job.”

Each day, about 45 people with disabilities arrive at the Easterseals Northeast Indiana Creative Learning Center for a day of activities, learning and fun. It’s up to the staff to guide them through hours of different activities, from morning exercise to Trivial Pursuit to cards or crafts or art or cooking class or singing or the computer lab. Karate and ballroom dance classes are recent additions to the mix of engaging options.

Christina Sipe rolls with it all and never stops loving the dozens of people who come to Easterseals Northeast Indiana in Columbia City.

“You have to go in there with a big heart, wanting to help others out completely, no matter what. … You gotta be a very loving person to all kinds of people ─ all races, religions, disabilities. You just gotta be there,” she said.

Sipe has been a Direct Support Professional, or DSP, for eight years. She began in a group home, working with eight women who lived there; she start on second shift, then worked third. In an effort to bring more balance to her life, she transferred to first shift in the Creative Learning Center, called CLC by almost everyone involved.

Versatility is essential. On a recent day, Sipe started the morning leading an exercise class. Half the main room of the CLC was darkened, so people there could follow exercise routines set to music and played on a big-screen television on one wall. (Others remained in the brightly lighted side of the room, settling in, talking or playing games.) Some of the routines she led were performed sitting in chairs, the better to include people who used wheelchairs or who had trouble with balance or standing. Throughout the routines, Sipe encouraged everyone to fit exercises to their abilities.

Later in the morning, Sipe led a game of Trivial Pursuit, paused to share surprise hugs from people she helps, joined a game of Yahtzee, and helped everyone get ready for lunch. A few people needed help with their lunch, having a small bite or two at time placed on their plates. Typically, Sipe sits between two older men who need that help, turning from one to the other every minute or so, doling out manageable bites on their plates.

“She’s very kind and caring. She has a compassionate heart,” said Tanalee Scott, who supervises the CLC.  “What she does is always for the benefit of the client.”

Sipe did many kinds of work before Easterseals Northeast Indiana, from a four-year stint in the Navy where she did administrative and clerical work to a year as a nursing aide to a job in a plastics factory.

Her brother, who works as a DSP in Georgia, encouraged her to try it. “You have a good heart. You’ll be great at it, and they’ll love you.”

It was no more than a few weeks after her first shift in the group home that she knew her brother had nailed it perfectly.

“I enjoyed it, just because of the type of person I am,” Sipe said. “I’m always willing to help somebody out and teach them and do what I can for them. My personality fit it.”

Jorge Ruiz has worked many jobs in his 43 years, but he’s come back to being a Direct Support Professional, or DSP.

Ruiz now works about 32 hours a week staffing an Easterseals Northeast Indiana Medicaid waiver home in Fremont. The first hours after he showed up for work on a recent Monday afternoon showed how busy the job can be.

In only a few minutes, he coached Ralph through each step of assembling dinner ─ fish sticks, vegetables, three kinds of fruit and mashed potatoes ─ stepping in frequently to help. He prepared cups of juice or water for the other two men in the home. He set up Excell, who usually uses a wheelchair, for 30 minutes of sitting on an exercise mat to maintain some tone in his abdominal muscles. He grabbed a minute here and there to keep pace with record-keeping.

Ruiz was cheerful throughout. He recounted the years he spent as a supervisor at RISE and later at another agency before he rejoined Easterseals Northeast Indiana as a DSP in July 2020.

“When I came back, I only wanted to do direct care. This is part of the reason,” he said, gesturing around a kitchen where he was surrounded by the noise of hungry men waiting for their dinners. “I love working direct care, and I missed it. I love what I do, and I love my guys.”

There are many jobs he has done or could do. He has a bachelor’s degree in education, with a focus on special education. He and his partner own and operate two businesses ─ Golden Green Soap Co. and Elemento ─ only steps away from the roundabout in downtown Angola. In the past, he’s managed some of his family’s pancake restaurants. He’s shot portraits of children for a living.

What draws him to his work as a DSP appears in how deeply he knows the men who live in the Fremont house. He knows the music they like. One needs his food pureed; another needs it diced. He prepares their food almost automatically as he juggles demands near dinner. Two of them speak few or no words, but to Ruiz, their gestures, the direction of their gazes, the pitch and volume of their voices, and their facial expressions communicate quite a lot.

Excell’s attention doesn’t fix on any of the objects around him in his first minutes on the mat. He calls out, looking straight at Ruiz. “What are you telling me? Are you telling me it’s time for dinner?” Ruiz asks him.

As Ralph kept watch on a preheating oven, Ruiz returned to the living room to work with Excell on the exercise mat.

Maintaining muscle tone in his abdomen helps Excell in many ways. For example, some abdominal strength makes it easier and safer to transfer him into or out of his wheelchair or the shower.

After Ruiz helps Ralph put a tray of fish sticks in the oven, Ralph joins him as he works with Excell. Ralph can do more things on his own than his roommates can; he likes to help Ruiz with all the tasks he can, including looking out for and helping the other two residents.

“He’s a nurturer,” Ruiz says of Ralph. When the time comes to move Excell back into his wheelchair, Ralph steadies the chair as Ruiz helps Excell rise to his feet and step back into the chair.

Ruiz returned to Easterseals Northeast Indiana last year, in the same month its merger with Easterseals Northeast Indiana took effect. He appreciates the benefits package and the raise in DSP wages this year, but the appeal of Easterseals Northeast Indiana runs much deeper than the money he earns.

“I feel like we treat our clients better than a lot of places. You can tell there’s a lot more training that goes on here,” he said.

Carroll High School student Makayla got a semester-long introduction to what it’s like to work in the preschool at Hickory Center Elementary School.

Makayla, a junior, was one of about two dozen Carroll students who took part in Easterseals Northeast Indiana’s Pre-Employment Transition Services during the spring semester of 2019. All of the students in Pre-ETS investigate potential career and education paths and develop skills that will help them find and hold jobs. Some, such as Makayla, actually work as part of Pre-ETS.

In Makayla’s case, that meant spending afternoons with the children in preschool at Hickory Center. Some of her work was play, such as the time she spent with a boy who’s fascinated by dinosaurs or presiding at a table of children during snack time. Other times, she dived right into helping prepare the preschoolers for kindergarten. At the direction of teacher Cori Laemmle, she provided individual help to children who were learning to write by tracing letters.

“She’s a natural in the classroom,” Laemmle said. “She’s very observant and jumps right in. She thinks of things to do that I haven’t asked her to do yet.”

“I like to see them coloring pictures and playing around and exercising,” Makayla said of her preschooler students. Working in the preschool means “being able to help kids learn, kind of like I did, and seeing them enjoy having me around.”

Work-based learning opportunities, such as Makayla’s time in the preschool at Hickory Center, aren’t the only benefit of Pre-ETS. The program also includes job-exploration counseling, counseling on opportunities for education after high-school, training to help students succeed in jobs, and instruction in advocating for themselves.

Several of the 13 students in the Pre-ETS program at Homestead High School worked in retail stores during the 2018-2019 school year. They saw firsthand the behind-the-scenes effort that keeps the stores running.

Pre-Employment Transition Services are designed to help students explore work opportunities and includes hands-on work experiences at participating businesses.

At the Goodwill store on the southwest side of Fort Wayne, senior Kenyon, 17, paid close attention to sorting clothing and hangers. “I like doing the price tags and putting the hangers up,” he said.

In Chestnut Hills Plaza, at the Walgreens store, 17-year-old Andrew helped with unloading trucks, running inventory, arranging stock and pulling expired items off shelves.

“I love putting things away. I think it’s fun,” said Andrew, who was a junior during his time at Walgreens. “I like stuff to be neat and perfect.”

Richey, 18, was a senior when he worked at the Franciscan Family Thrift store in southwest Fort Wayne. He often was the strongest person available on the staff, and other employees relied on him to make the heavy work easier on everyone.

“I like working with heavy stuff,” Richey said. “They usually call me to help with the heavy stuff.”

Homestead students in Pre-ETS worked at a wide variety of businesses. In addition to retail environments, students were employed at the Jorgensen Family YMCA, Lutheran Hospital, Aboite Elementary School, Sunshine Christian Academy, Pizza Hut, and PHP.

Students at Wayne High School are working in area businesses, thanks to a collaboration with Easterseals Northeast Indiana.

On a Thursday morning in spring, J’nylan and Taylor were working at Friends Too, a restaurant on near the intersection of Illinois Road and Jefferson Boulevard.

Both students are getting their work experience at Friends Too through Easterseals Northeast Indiana’s Pre-Employment Transition Services (Pre-ETS). The program is designed to help students explore employment and education opportunities, including time working in participating businesses. Any student ages 14 to 22 with an IEP or 504 plan is eligible for Pre-ETS.

The two Wayne seniors took turns working in the dining area of the restaurant and in its kitchen. In the kitchen, Taylor stays busy loading and unloading the dishwasher and cleaning for most of her two-hour shift. As time allows, she pitches in on other cleaning, such as sweeping a part of the restaurant that opens only for rush periods.

“I like the work,” Taylor said. “I like to do the dishes. I like sweeping floors and cleaning windows.”

Taylor enjoys it enough that she expects to look for a job cleaning after high school. She also has taken classes in culinary work through Pre-ETS, so finding work as a cook is a possibility, too.

While Taylor was working behind the scenes, J’nylan was occupied in the front of Friends Too. He restocked holders at every table with packets of sweetener. He also washed windows, doors and door handles. Another part of his job is keeping bathrooms neat. J’Nylan said he enjoys the work, particularly cleaning windows and the front door, as well as sweeping and dusting.

Job coaches from Easterseals Northeast Indiana accompany Pre-ETS students to their work sites, where they help train and supervise them as needed. Neither J’nylan nor Taylor require much supervision these days.

“They work very independently,” said job coach Catherine Kesith.

Friends Too hostess Vicki Hertenstein said the Pre-ETS students have been great to work with.

“It’s been awesome!” she said. “They’re polite. They listen. They do what they’re told. They’re good kids. It’s been a pleasant experience.”

Students in Pre-ETS at Wayne High School work at several sites, including PHP and Ivy Tech Community College.