{"id":289,"date":"2020-04-23T13:46:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T18:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yescenter.wpengine.com\/?p=289"},"modified":"2020-09-30T16:20:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T21:20:42","slug":"meet-kirstin-and-learn-about-her-first-community-based-job-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/meet-kirstin-and-learn-about-her-first-community-based-job-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Kirstin and Learn About Her First Community-Based Job Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Kirstin Bradach enjoys the color pink, laughing, making food, and taking photos of her creations. Until last summer, Kirstin worked her entire adult life for Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette (GICW) in Portland, OR. GICW is transforming its services to entirely community-based, and is focusing on finding integrated, community jobs for its clients.<\/p>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Kirstin went through Discovery and one of her passions and interests that stood out was baking and cooking. Job developer Brenda Courtright looked for a job that would fit Kirstin\u2019s skills and interests at a family-owned business. \u201cI like being in the community; it\u2019s more fun,\u201d Kirstin said. \u201cI meet lots of people here. And the people here are so sweet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Kirstin, 28, currently works 15 hours per week as a lobby attendant at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kyrasbakeshop.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kyra\u2019s Bake Shop<\/a>, an entirely gluten-free bakery in Lake Oswego, OR. Kyra\u2019s Bake Shop is an award-winning bakery, recognized as a multiple winner of Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. Kristin\u2019s duties include stamping the take-home bakery bags, keeping the lobby area clean and organized, and greeting customers. She had her first job interview of her adult life with owner Kyra and started working at the bakery in June 2016. \u201cIt was so awesome,\u201d Kirstin said, grinning. \u201cEveryone really liked me and I liked them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Kirstin has Down Syndrome and lives in Beaverton, OR. Lori Demers, Kirstin\u2019s job coach with GICW, said Kirstin has grown more confident and expanded her job duties as time has passed. \u201cShe started by just cleaning tables,\u201d Lori said. \u201cShe advocated for herself for more hours and duties.\u201d Mary Lucas, manager at Kyra\u2019s Bake Shop, said customers at the bakery love interacting with Kirstin in the lobby. \u201cShe is great at doing the little things so there is less for us to try and squeeze in during the busy day,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen Kirstin first started, the reaction from customers was overwhelming. They recognized that our business was being more inclusive and responded very positively.\u201d Kathy Alderson was Kristin\u2019s original job coach. She said Kirstin has changed since she first started working in the community. \u201cShe has blossomed,\u201d Kathy said. \u201cAt first she was shy and wasn\u2019t sure of herself, but she is growing so much and has become so confident.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>\u201cKIRSTIN IS SUCH A POSITIVE EXAMPLE OF WHAT SOMEONE CAN ACHIEVE IF THEY ARE GIVEN A CHANCE.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Kirstin loves to cook in her free time with the help of her aides at home. She flips through photos of dishes she has cooked on her phone, pointing out ones she is especially proud of. \u201cI take pictures of the food because I love to be creative,\u201d Kirstin said, holding up a photo of a colorful beet salad she prepared. \u201cI love anything creative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p>In addition to working at Kyra\u2019s Bake Shop, Kirstin is a member of&nbsp;<em>I\u2019m A Star<\/em>, a theater arts program specifically designed for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. \u201cKirstin is such a positive example of what someone can achieve if they are given a chance,\u201d said Kathy Alderson. \u201cWhen you let go of misconceptions about what people can and can\u2019t do and let us work for the person and find a good fit, a lot is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p>Story and photo credit: DHS Oregon Employment First&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iworkwesucceed.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/iworkwesucceed.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kirstin Bradach enjoys the color pink, laughing, making food, and taking photos of her creations. Until last summer, Kirstin worked her entire adult life for Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette (GICW) in Portland, OR. GICW is transforming its services to entirely community-based, and is focusing on finding integrated, community jobs for its clients. &nbsp;&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yestoemployment.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}