How Puzzle Pieces Turns Grocery Shopping Into A Skill-Building Adventure For Young Adults

Let's be honest. For many of us, going to the grocery store is a chore. Rather than being someone we enjoy doing, a lot of us view that weekly trip as something we have to do. And, it's not a stretch to say that grocery shopping is something that many of us just take for granted. We do it. We complain about it. Or, these days, we just to have someone do it for us.

That attitude that many of us carry about grocery shopping isn't the attitude shared by the clients of Puzzle Pieces. For them, a trip to the grocery is an adventure and a much-appreciated exercise in "real-world" living.

Puzzle Pieces has a program called ETS. That stands for Employment Transition Services and it's geared to clients ranging in age from 14 to 21-years-old. According to Puzzle Pieces Executive Director Amanda Owen, those individuals "desire to build foundational skills to successful employment when they graduate from high school." The ETS program is offered through the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation and Puzzle Pieces is a vendor that provides this service.

Recently, in one of Puzzle Pieces' Pre-ETS groups, clients have been focusing on retail skills and learning the ins and outs of fulfilling online shopping orders. Blair Neighbors serves as Puzzle Pieces' Autism Director and she leads this class. Recently, her class took their skills training to a local grocery store. There, they practiced finding items from an order submitted by phone. Their challenge? To find the products requested and fulfill the quantities requested in the order.

Two of the young ladies in the class- Emma Bruner and Junie Keisling- were photographed as they absolutely careered the training exercise.

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Blair says, "These experiences build confidence, independence, and work-readiness for their future."

Puzzle Pieces knows that the impact of hands-on training like this is vital to future success. "Every skill learned today is a step toward their future employment and a stronger, more inclusive workforce tomorrow."