Paul's Place

At Paul’s Place, our students engage in the process of donation sorting and assessment, where they evaluate incoming items for usability, verify sizes, and label items accordingly using tape and markers. This hands-on experience enhances their organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to adhere to established procedures, equipping them with valuable competencies that are transferable to future professional roles.

Burlington Coat Factory

At Burlington, our students gain valuable retail experience by organizing toys, sorting clothing, and arranging items such as shoes within designated aisles. Through this role, they gain an understanding of product placement and the importance of an organized store layout in enhancing the overall customer shopping experience. Additionally, the process of sorting and categorizing items helps students develop essential skills in attention to detail and spatial organization.

Meals on Wheels

Our students actively engaged in the preparation and packing of boxes for homebound individuals, a task that involved organizing and counting items such as milk cartons, fruit cups, and meal packs. Working collaboratively, they ensured that each box was properly assembled and ready for delivery. Through this hands-on experience, students developed essential skills in organization, numeracy, and teamwork, all while making a meaningful contribution to the community service initiative.

Best Buddies is the world’s largest organization dedicated to ending the social, physical and economic isolation of the 200 million people with special needs. For individuals within this community, Best Buddies helps them form meaningful friendships with their peers, secure successful jobs, live independently, improve public speaking, self-advocacy and communications skills, and feel valued by society.

These programs build one-to-one friendships between people with and without special needs, offering social interactions while improving the quality of life and level of inclusion for a population that is often isolated and excluded. Through their participation, people with special needs form meaningful connections with their peers, gain self-confidence and self-esteem, and share interests, experiences and activities that many other individuals enjoy.

This program also secures jobs for people with special needs, allowing them to earn an income, pay taxes, and continuously and independently support themselves.

The Jobs program places focus beyond the typical jobs in which a person with special needs might be placed. Best Buddies focuses on finding work that matches the job seeker’s interests and talents.

The programs educate and empower people with and without special needs to become leaders, public speakers and advocates. Best Buddies passionately believes that its program participants can lead the effort within their community and beyond to build a more inclusive world for people with special needs.