“Before joining a small nonprofit organization in Hunterdon County, Tanner Anderson mostly kept to himself.
Now, one of his favorite things to do is make new friends.
“I got here this past January, and I just like to meet new people,” said Anderson, who is 28 and lives in Washington Township in Warren County. “I’m still learning how to be independent, and how to meet people and be friends with everybody.”
Anderson is a member of StarThrower Group, an organization established in Flemington in 2018 to provide career support, service opportunities and community connections for young adults with special needs.
The main purpose of StarThrower Group is to teach its members, like Anderson, how to gain their independence.
“We’re there to support them through whatever personal or career or educational goals that they have for themselves,” explained Jenni Clark, the organization’s founder and CEO. “My friend once said it’s not about them making a living; it’s about them making a life. And that is really what it is.”
StarThrower Group has implemented a myriad of programs and activities for its approximately 50 members that range from dancing to knitting to educational lessons. These programs help the organization’s members cultivate connections with one another and with the staff, who observe how they interact and learn what their interests are before immediately launching them into a career path.
“So many agencies just say, ‘Oh, well there’s a job pushing carts at ShopRite, let’s go over there.’ Not that that’s a bad job, that’s just not everybody’s career,” Clark said. “And just because they have a disability doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have the opportunity … to be looking into their careers and their future — not just something that’s keeping them busy.”
“So it’s about shifting the mindset to help people to be able to do that,” she added.
In connecting one of the members with a potential new job, Clark commonly arranges for them to initially “sample” the experience so they don’t run the risk of being hired into a job for which they are not well suited.
“It’s so hard for everybody to overcome (being fired), but it’s even more difficult for people who already have lower self-esteem because of what they’ve already had to endure their whole life, or being told their whole life they can’t do something because they are disabled,” Clark said. “So first we start to get that skill and experience, and then we go and fill out a resume, and go on an interview, and actually get hired.”
However, the organization does not merely equate independence with a new career, but simply with helping its members get to the next step in their lives — regardless of what that next step may be.
“Our goal is their goal,” Clark explained. “I have a couple, we’ve had a serious talk about them getting married and having kids — they want to do that. And I said, ‘OK, we need to get you to that point.’”
In connecting one of the members with a potential new job, Clark commonly arranges for them to initially “sample” the experience so they don’t run the risk of being hired into a job for which they are not well suited.
“It’s so hard for everybody to overcome (being fired), but it’s even more difficult for people who already have lower self-esteem because of what they’ve already had to endure their whole life, or being told their whole life they can’t do something because they are disabled,” Clark said. “So first we start to get that skill and experience, and then we go and fill out a resume, and go on an interview, and actually get hired.”
However, the organization does not merely equate independence with a new career, but simply with helping its members get to the next step in their lives — regardless of what that next step may be.
“Our goal is their goal,” Clark explained. “I have a couple, we’ve had a serious talk about them getting married and having kids — they want to do that. And I said, ‘OK, we need to get you to that point.’”…
View the whole story here: https://www.nj.com/news/2021/05/nj-nonprofit-helps-shape-the-futures-of-young-adults-with-special-needs.html?outputType=amp