Mission Possible, a community based employment program promoting inclusion, advanced through the collaboration of Gateways, Boys & Girls Club of Nashua, and Opportunity Networks, with funding from the Family Support Council, recently celebrated its inaugural session end with a commencement event. (Pictured left to right are Heidi Bowman with Opportunity Networks, Michael Bauer, Oksana Guenkel, Janine Leffler, Corey Shanahan, Robert Woodcock, and Justin Newton, Education Director, Boys & Girls Club.)
Mission Possible participants had to fill out an application which was reviewed by a selection committee. Once reviewed, the participants were invited to participate in an interview. For many of the participants, it was the first interview of their lives. Following the interviews, the selection committee selected 6 candidates to participate in Mission Possible.
Each participant attended the program for 10 weeks, three days a week, from 3:00-6:00PM. They were responsible for their own transportation. During the ten weeks, the participants had the opportunity to participate in two five week rotations in a position that the students and Mission Possible identified as an interest area.
The participants would start each day with a lesson and report to their rotations for two hours each day. The lessons would include topics such as: dressing for success, dealing with co-workers, communicating for assistance, quality of work, and self advocacy. The participants were paid $7.25 per hour for 9 hours each week.
Some of the rotations included:
- Homework Room: Assisting the children with homework and using the computers
- Art Room: Assisting the teacher to hand out items, assist the children as needed, clean the tables and supplies
- Kitchen: Serve and deliver food to the Teen Center
- Front Office: Filing, Data Entry, Collating packets
- Game Room Attendant: Signing out supplies and games to children in the program
Contact Information:
Lisa O'Connor, 459-2709, loconnor@gatewayscs.org.
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