Confidence and Bread Rising
Alea loves to blast music as she works. She is employed at Weis Markets on White Street, York, in the bakery. During her shift, she prepares pastries and French bread for the following morning. Alea enjoys working behind the scenes where she can turn up some tunes and focus on her duties like placing frozen pastries on cookie sheets, allowing them to thaw before refrigerating them.
“I’m happy to have my job because it keeps me in my apartment and it beats being unemployed,” she says.
Alea thanks Bell’s vocational rehabilitation program for her job, in particular, Mallory, a Supported Employment Program job coach who helped her secure the job through mock interviews and by transporting her to the real interview. She was referred to the program through her MH/MR caseworker and has been involved with Bell for two years. Alea added that she needed a goal plan in order to secure the job and has interest in someday working in a movie theater or a bookstore.
story by Nathan Wingert, communications intern summer 2011