Photo courtesy of SAIL Students developed professional skills over the summer across the Copper Country in various roles, including The Village of Calumet, area state parks, and local businesses.

Superior Alliance for Independent Living

Press release

Houghton, MI – This summer in Houghton County, Superior Alliance for Independent Living, Disability Network of the Upper Peninsula (SAIL) and the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) – Michigan Rehabilitation Services (MRS) partnered together to provide paid work-based learning experiences for local area youth who identify living with a disability.

It can often be challenging for a student to identify potential career fields that match his/her interests and abilities, especially for students living with a disability and/or those who have little to no work experience.

This work-based learning program provided the opportunity for these students to learn appropriate work skills in a supportive environment. All work sites consisted of one or more students and a job mentor who worked alongside them and provided feedback and guidance throughout the program.

The program allows students to network with community agencies and professionals in hopes of gaining references and awareness of potential job opportunities. This program also busts myths of the amount of work students with disabilities can perform and employers’ perspectives of what it means to hire or work with someone with a disability. It allows students to gain insight and explore the type of work they may want to pursue in the future.

All these benefits of the program help ensure students can be successful when they transition into the workforce after high school.

Some of the skills that participants have the opportunity to develop include social/interpersonal skills, time management, organization, problem solving, communication, conflict resolution, teamwork, work ethic, self-advocacy, and leadership. For many students, this opportunity was their first job and allowed them to gain valuable experience that they can include on their resumes.

A total of eight job sites within the area agreed to partner with SAIL and MRS to provide this work experience. In total, there were 25 students who worked in various locations across the Houghton area. Those sites included Barga State Park, Twin Lake State Park, McLain State Park, Calumet Village, Calumet High School, Hancock High School, Tadych’s Foods, and Goodwill Industries. Duties across the sites ranged from park maintenance, landscaping, and manual labor.

Megan Haselden, Calumet Village manager, said five students worked with the village on a number of jobs.

“For me, the best thing about working with the SAIL Program was how flexible they were,” Haselden said, “with changes in the weather, for different needs that may have arisen with the village and with the theater.”

Haselden said among the jobs the students did was assisting in the clean-up of Agassiz Park.

“Each day that they came, they would start their day there and do a little cleaning up of the pavilion,” said Haselden.

They then worked with the Street Department with the painting of curbs, she said, adding that they did not get to accomplish as much as hoped, because the weather did not cooperate.

“But, they did a lot of painting of the curbs around the village, and cleaning up in general, like picking up the trash throughout the park, within our green spaces and within our downtown area.”

Inside the Village Hall building, they helped in the Calumet Theatre quite a lot. After each event, the SAIL workers came in the next day and cleaned the ballroom, swept and mopped the floor.

“They helped me organize some things up in the ballroom and here in the Village Hall,” said Haselden, “then sort of worked in Village Hall to help us clean up, so we were able to get things done, like polishing our door handles, wiping down the handles on each of our seats — you know, things that you don’t really think about, but that are definitely necessary.”

Haselden said the Sail Program students were a great benefit to the village on several levels.

Superior Alliance for Independent Living, Disability Network of the Upper Peninsula (SAIL) assists individuals with disabilities and promotes accessible Upper Peninsula communities for all. SAIL serves all 15 counties of the Upper Peninsula and provides a wide range of services that assist people with disabilities in gaining independence and preparing to enter the workforce. For more information about SAIL or if you are interested in becoming a work site next summer you can contact SAIL at 1-906-228-5744 or visit SAIL’s website at: www.upsail.org.

Mining Gazette staff writer Graham Jaehnig contributed to this release.