Brandon Subway named Employee of the Year

Jill Meier

Journal editor

 

A Brandon restaurant has been helping students with disabilities gain valuable work experience. And now the statewide program – Project Skills and Volunteers – has recognized the local Subway for their ongoing support of the program and the students it involves.

Kelly Eichelberg, a special education instructor at Brandon Valley High School, nominated the store’s managerial staff, Eric and Cali Olesen, for the honor. Here’s what she had to say in her nomination letter:

“The manager at Subway Restaurant in Brandon has been instrumental in facilitating a work employee/student relationship that inspires the staff who work alongside students in the Project Skills and Volunteers program. All staff who work with our kids help to instruct them with the same expectations and professionalism expected from all of their workers. They listen to the recommendations of the job coach so the students have accommodations provided for independence. Eric’s work in this area has helped many of our students become successful in the work place and will continue to provide support and guidance to students with disabilities for many years to come.”

The award was presented Sept. 12 during the 2017 Center for Disabilities Symposium luncheon, which was organized by the USD School of Medicine – Center for Disabilities. The statewide Project Skills and Volunteers program, which schools have access to, was designed for students who are eligible for services to go out into the community to work and are paid through the state department, Eichelberg explained.

Brandon Subway has taken part in the Project Skills and Volunteers program the last four years, and Eric Olesen said the experience has been a positive one.

“I’m honored to receive it, and I was surprised by it. He said. “I think it’s a great program. You (Eichelberg) work with them, I get to work with them a little bit, train them and get them ready to take on the work.”

Eichelberg said she nominated Subway and Olesen because of their willingness to participate.

“They’re just willing to open up their store, let the kids come in and let us come in as job coaches, and these students as fellow workers. They don’t treat them any different than anyone else, they give them the same work experience. They treat them as people. They give them a shot at a job, and are very easy to work with,” she said.

Subway, she added, has employed an average of two BVHS students with disabilities each school year and sometimes through the summer months.

Olesen said the student-employees typically start out cleaning and re-stocking, and move up to sandwich artisans, when and if capable.

“Depending on what they’re capable of doing, once they get one task down, we add another task and then more tasks,” said Cali Olesen, operations manager for the Brandon store and five others under their ownership. “Some of them, it takes a little bit longer and for some of them, they get it done fast, and one that works here now, he holds a key to the store, closes and makes a good sandwich, too.”

Eichelberg said the students benefit wholeheartedly.

“They all get exposure to what it means to work, they all gain some work experience and can put some things down on applications for jobs they apply for down the road,” she said. “They get to know the value of money and what to do with a paycheck and to save for things, and get confidence knowing they can go in and get a job.”