Community News
HDS Foundation Prepares Special Needs Students for Workplace By Stacey Bomser
U
are basic office tools that any person working in Exceptional Student Education (ESE) students at Cypress Bay High School an office needs to know.” from finding jobs. The Weston-based HDS Foundation has created a hands-on The first step is to job training program that is getting these students ready to join the workforce. teach the students the software and how to use it. “We want them to know it like they know their phones, where they can text, post to Facebook, play intricate games, etc.,” explains Gilson. “We will teach them until they are proficient.” The HDS Foundation was the brainchild of Cristina Miranda Gilson, founder of She says the second Housing and Development Services, Inc., a software company providing services to part is more challenging. the affordable housing and community development market. Within her Weston-based That’s where the students Cristina Miranda Gilson, CEO and Founder of HDS Companies and the HDS Foundation, enjoying a pizza company, she had fostered a corporate culture of volunteering and supporting community actually use these tools to party with students A.J. LaFontaine and Steven Gordon. organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, the Broward Partnership for the Homeless, address a need. “We are the Dan Marino Foundation and Autism Speaks. The latter agencies were always especially having all of the departments in the company come up with real-life scenarios where important to Gilson they use Word or Excel to manage a task or need. There’s a lot you can do with just because her youngest these two applications, and we want to bring it down to the practical use.” daughter has an Autism To reinforce these skills, Gilson’s company donated a dozen computers plus software Spectrum Disorder. to Cypress Bay so the students can practice what they’ve learned. They have already When her daughter created their own website in class. started high school last In addition to software, the students are also learning valuable business skills such year Gilson realized the as marketing through the mentoring program. “They manufacture special novelty need to help transition pens, called Pizzazz Pens, at school as part of the Best Buddies program, which they ESE students who have package very nicely and can sell as giveaways for different businesses,” notes Gilson. autism and related dis- “Last year we taught them how to do a small marketing campaign and sell our marketabilities into adulthood. ing director on the idea to buy them for one of our conferences. Our team worked with “In many ways it has the kids and eventually they presented the idea to her and walked away with a sale.” Cypress Bay ESE students A.J. LaFontaine (left), Brian Espinet, Maria Duran and Steven Gordon are participating in been seeing how my Gilson says the HDS Foundation will be working with the students to create a website a workplace mentoring program with the HDS Foundation. own daughter has been to market their Pizzazz Pens to the community. “I know many small businesses buy mentored by others and the positive influence it has had on her life that encouraged giveaways of different types. What a better way to support their organization than to me to do the same for this population of kids and young adults.” buy something that you would normally get anyways, but know that our own comAccording to Gilson, the HDS Foundation has a two-fold mission: to mentor high munity’s special needs kids created them.” school students to teach them certain business skills in a real office environment, and She is also hopeful that local businesses will considering hiring one of these students. improve their chances for gainful employment; and to try to create a business model for “As a small business owner I can tell you, you always have things that need to be done. small businesses to be able to hire a person with special needs by helping the employer If we, in this community, commit to hiring at least one person, whether part-time or better understand effective ways of working with such an full-time, we can make a huge difference in the lives of individual, strategies that work, and how valuable these those who most need it.” students can be to their small business needs. Having worked alongside these students for almost Last spring, Gilson started a mentoring program at Cypress a year now, Gilson knows first-hand that these students Bay working with the school’s ESE specialists. Twice a week are employable and offer valuable assets to the workplace. the students go to the Housing and Development Services “When we worked on building resumes and how to look office where they work alongside company employees for a job, many of the students listed a couple of places learning valuable office-technology skills. they had worked. One of them had a real interview last According to Dr. Sheryl Sugerman, Support Facilitator/ month and she got the job! Everyone here was so excited ESE Teacher at Cypress Bay, the mentoring program is a and happy, it almost brought tears to our eyes.” wonderful complement to the student’s career exploration Gilson says she would like to expand the mentoring curriculum. “The classroom has various centers dependent program, but in order to do so the Foundation needs more on the jobs available in the community. One of our cencapital. “What more would I love than asking my landlord ters is clerical. Students have been learning to photocopy, Steven Gordon working on his resume to lease more space, hire the staff I need to teach what we collate paper, shred paper, file, enter data into a database, during the job search unit. are trying to, including programming, purchase additional answer telephones, etc. Working at HDS has allowed the students to generalize their equipment and really get this thing going.” skills into an actual work environment.” The mentoring program is focusing on Microsoft Office 2010 this year, specifically To learn more about the HDS Foundation, its mission and its mentoring program, Outlook, Word and Excel. According to Gilson, “We think that these three programs visit www.HDSFoundation.org. nemployment rates may be high, but that’s not preventing
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