Client Employment - One Employer, Five Success Stories
The Goal of the Excel Society is to assist clients with mental and physical disabilities. We achieve that goal as clients become employed and when they move out on their own.
While we can prepare a client for meaningful work, it is really the employer and their existing staff who take in the client, give them a chance and keep an eye out for their safety and success. One such employer in Edmonton is Pizza 73! While they want to be known for their great pizzas and wings, when you look deeper into their organization there is a realization that in a strong workplace there is room for people with handicaps, challenges and limitations.
The Pizza 73 story involves 7 young men 6 of whom began their job training with the Excel Society. The company has 26 stores in the greater Edmonton are and these stores order their products through a central commissary. The three key players are Carl, the Operations Manger, Lucy Nazarchuk, the Commissary Manager, and Bonnie Harrison, the Assistant Manager. The success of the seven individuals is largely due to the strong support and encouragement they receive from Carl, Lucy and Bonnie.
Lucy is a combination den mother and tough boss. She insists that everyone works safe and that they support each other as a team. Touring the site you quickly notice everyone's critical attention to the food aspects of their work. They begin and end everyday with extensive cleaning and almost everyone has their Safe Food Handling certificate.
Excel's Frontiers and Employment programs can help prepare some of our clients for work, but it takes a commitment by the employer and their existing staff to "be there!" for the client starting a new job. The visible sense of team and the constant in team support for each other has helped all these clients. They are confident, hard working and dependable members of the Pizza 73 workforce. When one member of the team gets to go to the special Olympics, the rest of the team steps up for some extra shifts to make it work and still keep the product moving to the 26 stores.
Whether it's sanitizing the work stations and equipment, checking on the cooler temperatures, rotating stock or counting out the orders, this team is ready. They understand and respect the safety concerns when using sharp knives or slicing machines. They get the job done and done well according to Lucy and Bonnie.
Everyone wins here as the employees gain confidence and earn their cheque while the employer receives the commitment of a strong team able to get the job done.
Congratulations to the Pizza 73 team for their part in supporting their community! As for Lucy, her smile is contagious; you can see it in all their faces. Bravo!
