Twenty-one students with disabilities were provided the opportunity to be mentored by a wide range of career professionals during Pride Mobility Products Corporation and Quantum Rehab’s Disability Mentoring Day (DMD), hosted at Pride’s Exeter, Pa-based facility. Event attendees also included Luzerne Intermediate Unit (LIU) 18 specialists, learning support teachers, and parents.
The DMD event is intended to offer students and job seekers with disabilities insight into the workplace through hands-on career exploration, on-site job shadowing, and ongoing mentoring leading to internship and employment opportunities. During the event, participants received a welcome from Scott Meuser, chairman and CEO.
Next, the participants met with professionals in research and development, marketing, government affairs, sales, and technical service in order to learn the conventional job responsibilities and the necessary knowledge and skills needed for a specific vocation. Mark Smith, Pride Consumer research manager, characterizes DMD as a vital program and emphasizes its role in fostering the educational and employment goals of those with physical and intellectual disabilities.
“It’s an honor to have Pride Mobility involved in supporting those with disabilities in such an impacting way,” Smith says.
Event attendees received a tour of Pride’s facility, test lab, hands-on demonstrations of mobility products, personal perspective presentations from mobility product users Smith, as well as Pride consumer advocate Madonna Long, and Rodney Shemory, Pride receptionist with a visual impairment.
Sarah Pryor, teacher, adds that, “It was wonderful of the employees to share their stories and stress the importance of hard work and never giving up on your dreams.”
Source: Pride Mobility Products Corporation
