Businesses Partner with Life Skills Program to Help Yorktown Students

Students participating in Yorktown Central School District’s Life Skills program are getting lots of hands-on work experience with the help of local Yorktown-area businesses. These high school students with developmental disabilities are learning academics that include social studies, computers, art and math, but also getting a good dose of real life job experience.

One goal is to help teens learn job skills that will play a major factor in each student’s future work experiences, explains Social Worker Theresa Murdock, who works with these students and helps coordinate internships.

“One of my responsibilities is to help Life Skills students plan for their futures and prepare them for the world of work. Some students have intellectual disabilities and some are on the autism spectrum. They are enthusiastic learners and want what every other teenager wants – an opportunity to learn skills that will prepare them for future employment,” she says.

Student Joe Torrieri, 17, (on right in photo) works at Yorktown Pizza & Pasta each week taking pride in his task of making boxes. Joe Giuliano, (on left n photo) who owns the shop complements the younger Joe for his hard work and says as a longtime local business owner he is happy to help the students of the community.

At the 25-year-old pizzeria Joe Torrieri takes flat cardboard and makes up a stack of formed pizza boxes so the pies can get to customers this weekend.

“I like it. They need a lot of boxes,” says Torrieri, who also restocks merchandise at Acme supermarket.

“He has developed a good work ethic and knows what it feels like to get a job done,” says job coach Denise Vignola, a Certified Teaching Assistant who has worked in the district for 13 years. Many teens work in pizza shops as one of their first jobs, she adds noting that she did when she was a teen.

The community of Yorktown has gone above and beyond in its support for this program, says Murdock. “Without this support we would not be able to offer our students this exposure to the world of work, responsibility and skill advancement.”

The program, which began in 2008, teaches job skills as well as the importance of acting appropriately in a business environment, following a boss’s instructions and showing up ready to work.

Thanks go to these local businesses who have helped support the program during the past several years: Sports Barn, 7-11, Yorktown Heights Insurance and Sensible Business Solutions, Yorktown Pizza and Pasta, Steinmann Deli, The Seed Day Care Center, A&P, ACME, Yorktown Coach Diner, Taco Bell, Mrs. Green’s Natural Market, Yorktown Solaris Club, The John C. Hart Memorial Library, Yorktown Senior Nutrition Center, Wilkens Fruit and Fir Farm, Pied Piper Preschool and Day Care, and our own Mohansic, Crompond and Brookside schools.

Businesses that would like to participate should contact Theresa Murdock at 914- 243-8050 x 11850 or tmurdock@yorktown.org.