VR hosts Employer Lunch and Learn

One in five people in the United States have a disability. For those individuals help is available in South Carolina through Vocational Rehabilitation. On Friday, Oct. 19, 2018, the Oconee and Pickens counties office of Vocational Rehabilitation hosted their first Employer Lunch and Learn to educate residents about the good work being done to match local businesses with employees. Sheila Ford, Area Supervisor for the Oconee-Pickens Area Office of Vocational Rehabilitation gives details. “We wanted to get the message out to employers that we have some consumers here that could make them some good employees. We also wanted to get the message out that if they had work that we could do here in our training center to give us a call and let’s see how we could meet some of their needs. I think we accomplished that by having one of our business partners come forward and tell how he went through this process and how we were of service to him. Then having a consumer, who we made that connection with and is successful, speaks volumes about what we do.” Kyle Hicks, Executive Director of the Residences at Park Place in Seneca was the guest speaker. “Well, once you just realize that all it is is people helping people. You take out the word disability and you just look at their ability. Once you look at that it goes back to people helping people. We are just glad that the Residences at Park Place could be a part of something so great at Vocational Rehabilitation.” Jennifer Leibler, Business Office Manager at the Residences of Park Place, also spoke at the luncheon as a consumer of Vocational Rehabilitation services. “Being a consumer and not being able to find a job was very disheartening, especially when you are told you go to college you’ll find a job and everything will work out. It did not work out for me, so having that backing and having Vocational Rehabilitation behind me in helping me find a job it felt like I found my place in the world and that I had a whole support team behind me willing me to succeed.” Vocational Rehabilitation Business Development Specialist Dan Alexander tells how businesses can become a partner with them. “We partner with different types of businesses. Really our partners give our consumers here an opportunity to go to work and to be able to have an opportunity to have a career. Here at our facility we have a training center too where we contract work with different companies and that gives us an opportunity to help them provide a need for them, but it also gives us an opportunity to help our consumers here learn a skill. Several things play into that, but we really do need our partners from the employment side to the contract side. They allow us to do a lot of things by having a good relationship with them.” The luncheon was held in support of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. To learn more at the Oconee-Pickens Area Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, call 864-882-6669 or visit www.scvrd.net.