{"id":23727,"date":"2025-04-16T03:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T03:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/23727\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T03:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T03:38:10","slug":"good-connections-cafe-opens-new-pathways-for-employment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/23727\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Connections Cafe opens new pathways for employment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DAYTON, Ohio \u2014 For one year now, a special &#8220;grab and go&#8221; style lunch spot in downtown Dayton has helped open new doors for individuals with developmental disabilities.<\/p>\n<p>Inside the Good Connections Cafe careers and a sense of fulfillment are heating up every day.<\/p>\n<p><b>What You Need To Know<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Goodwill Easter Seals Miami Valley Good Connections Cafe has been running for one year.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Individuals with developmental disabilities learn job skills, how to take inventory, work the cash register, prep food, and talk to customers.<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>In 2024, the program trained 138 participants and helped employees find a passion and focus.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cI love it! It\u2019s an amazing job,\u201d said employee Mahalia Stoneman.<\/p>\n<p>Stoneman has been working at the cafe since it opened and her favorite spot is the cash register. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cActually, I\u2019ve learned how to count money,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Her other favorite part is working with her two sisters.<\/p>\n<p>The unique cafe runs through the Goodwill Easter Seals Miami Valley.<\/p>\n<p>Stoneman and her coworkers learn job readiness skills, they are paid, and have a job coach helping them every step of the way.<\/p>\n<p>They learn how to take inventory, work the cash register, prep food, and talk to customers. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe program for the individuals could take anywhere from six months to a couple of years to move on to a job depending on what their needs are and what supports they need from the job coach to be ready for community employment,\u201d said program director Allison Underwood.<\/p>\n<p>In 2024, the program trained 138 participants and helped employees like Stoneman find a passion and focus. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe goal is actually to help get a job out of here and into the community doing the cash register,\u201d said Stoneman.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey show up every day, they\u2019re excited to be there, and we have hopefully found a job for them and helped them find a job that they want to stay at as a long-term employee. So there is a lot of positive that comes out of employing an individual with a developmental disability,\u201d Underwood said.<\/p>\n<p>For Stoneman, the job has opened new pathways she never saw coming.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf they didn\u2019t ask me, I probably would have never thought. This was a dream come true,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Along with learning food prep and taking money management training, participants also attend ServSafe food handler certification classes.<\/p>\n<p>One participant recently took the exam and passed successfully without help from a coach on the first try.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAYTON, Ohio \u2014 For one year now, a special &#8220;grab and go&#8221; style lunch spot in downtown Dayton&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3092],"tags":[14854,14858,14857,51,14856,14855,897,12029,14860,14859,14,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-23727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-alese-underwood","9":"tag-app-local-business","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-ctv","13":"tag-dayton","14":"tag-jobs","15":"tag-ohio","16":"tag-ohio-dayton-top-stories","17":"tag-ohio-what-you-need-to-know","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114345561565871899","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}