OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — Each week, students with the Winneconne Community School District intellectual disabilities program volunteer at local businesses, learning life skills and engaging with the community.
- The volunteer program was started last year to prepare the students for life after high school.
- The students help with cleaning, organizing, and anything else the business might need.
- The program teaches life skills while introducing small-town Winneconne to the students.
The intellectual disabilities program at WCSD is trying to normalize being a little different.
"Getting a bigger heart for the different types of people that are in the world," Mercedes Zabel, one of the ID teachers at WCSD says.
Several businesses, including Alpha Fitness, Beiser Realty, Winneconne Public Library, and Winneconne Thrift and Gift are involved with the program.
"We want it to be beneficial for the students as much as it is beneficial for the business," Zabel says.
Every day, Monday-Thursday, a couple of students spend an hour at a business, helping in any way they can.
"We have a business where we absolutely have things that special needs students can do," Nick Hawley, owner of Alpha Fitness, says.
The students learn hands-on skills and practice engaging with their community.
“They’re learning how to take what they learned in school and apply it to outside of school, which is sometimes really hard to bridge that gap," Nicole LeDioyt, another ID teacher at Winneconne says.
While the students learn, so does the community.
"Not every average person has the opportunity to work with people with disabilities, and so if we keep them tucked away at school, they're never going to get that opportunity," Zabel says.
Hawley says the decision to be involved with the program was a no-brainer.
"Watching them grow as people, their confidence grow, is why we do this," he says.
LeDioyt and Zabel say they're grateful the community has welcomed and accepted the students with open arms.
"It takes a village to grow wonderful humans," LeDioyt says.
