Changing the
way people
accept
other people.
PHOTO BY MATTHEW RAY
Richard Hanson, Maddie Ashcraft, Katie Zeigler, Nic Cox, Spencer Morrison, Kelly Skinner, Brian Stephens, Grant Smith, Elizabeth Johnson,
Lauren Moore, Amy Wright, Bitty Wright, Trevor Jefferson, and Beau Wright on World Down Syndrome Day, March 21, 2016.
Lauren lives with her mother and father and one of them drives
her to work.
“Her days are full,” Nagorski says. “She does dance and she
just had a big recital. She volunteers for the transition program a
county program helping people like herself, between ages 18-21,
with life skills and vocations. It’s whatever the supports are needed
to make the person successful. So, it doesn’t matter what the label
is, what the IQ is. It’s, ‘What does Lauren need to be successful
here at work?’ They do it beautifully at Bitty & Beau’s because they
look at the person and ask, ‘What can they contribute, what piece
of a job can they do?’ I look at Grant and they have molded such a
beautiful job for him. I have watched him expand his own respon-sibilities
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developmental disability (IDD) at the café located on the Rippy
Cadillac dealership lot where, as she describes it, she “puts the cof-fee
in cups.”
The cards come into play in that, instead of calling a customer’s
name when an order is ready like some coffee shops, Lauren
announces the face of the playing card. It might be: “ace of hearts!”
Then the customer holding the ace of hearts exchanges his or her
card for the beverage.
Nagorski, a former special-education teacher, has watched Lauren
grow from being a student at Laney High School to an assistant in
her classroom. Now, as her job coach, Nagorski works with Lauren
one day a week at the coffee shop. North Carolina’s oldest service
to aid the disabled, the Arc, makes her support possible.
as he has grown.”
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