SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — One employer is hiring workers with disabilities and helping them prepare for the workforce through a new training program.
Manager Marlee Lloyd has been helping guide workers through challenges.
“We figure out ways that we can work with them,” Lloyd said.
It’s part of her job to make sure workers can do theirs. She says she watched many of them grow.
“Coming in when they’re nervous and shy and opening up through the program,” Lloyd said.
The program is run at the Fresh Abilities restaurant in Springfield. It’s designed to cut back on unemployment and train workers with disabilities.
“It’s a six-week program,” Lloyd said. “It’s 110 hours, and they go through all kinds of food service training and sort of say they get their service certification.”
The program has been up and running for the last year at Clark State College.
“It was is critical to have them here on our campus and in a higher education setting to have their presence and provide not only food service for our faculty, staff, and students but training opportunities for those that they serve,” said Doug Schantz, Clark State College Vice President of Finance.
Schantz said it’s the first restaurant to open on campus since the pandemic, and it’s helping students in a different kind of way.
“Prior to the pandemic, when we had food service, we supplemented that extensively in order to have that here on our campus,” Schantz said. “What we’re able to do with Fresh Abilities actually helps to free up those resources so that we’re now able to use those for other student supporting initiatives that we have here on our campus.”
