Real Work Has Value to All

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best. – Theodore Isaac Rubin, American psychologist

Some of you readers and advertisers may have noticed that there is a new delivery person for East Wichita News news racks. His name is Jason and he’s a student at Heartspring, a Wichita school for speech and hearing impaired students.

(The photo is of Jason, a student at Heartspring who has autism. He delivers East Wichita News papers to racks on Wichita’s east side.)

Jason is part of a program that is giving him and other teens a chance at learning work skills in a volunteer position. This is not easy work for Jason, because he has autism and because he has a fear of the van he has to ride in. But this is a job he’s proud of, because it is real work, according to John Santonil, employment training coordinator at Heartspring.

Santonil contacted East Wichita News a few months ago, offering to have his students deliver papers. We were thrilled with the offer, because the job was important, but it was also time-consuming. Now, Jason is delivering about half of our 1,200 rack papers each month. The bulk of the paper’s 27,000 circulation are delivered by mail.

The Heartspring employment training program has seven students currently, according to San-tonil. “It seems little to some, but the growth our students attain is huge,” he said. “It reinforces the skills we teach.”

Students start with on-campus jobs, like delivering, doing laundry, and pulling weeds. When they master those skills, they move to other on-campus jobs from local businesses and organizations (from Pioneer Balloon, Cypress Medical, and RiverFest). Then, they move into the community. Nine entities are currently in the off-campus program–the Wichita Bar Association, Balls-N-Strikes, Botanica, Birds of Paradise, Towne Place Suites, the American Red Cross, Catholic Charities Daily Bread Food Pantry, Friends of the Library, and East Wichita News.

The students’ jobs include folding sheets, stocking shelves, weighing and packaging bird seed, sweeping, sanitizing CPR mannequins, vacuuming turf, washing windows, and setting up tables. “These jobs motivate them when they know they are doing well,” said Santonil.

People with disabilities have a nationwide unemployment rate of about 70 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. These  are people who want jobs and have no problems with showing up, unlike many non-disabled people.

As the chart on this page shows, the Labor Force Participation Rate has dropped sharply in the past five years. People with disabilities want to participate and need jobs.

Ruth Abbott, whose son Daniel is a former Heartspring student in the program, says her son was “enriched by the real, meaningful work” he did, and it was “something he looked forward to doing.”

Eighty-eight percent of Americans prefer to give their business to employers who hire people with disabilities, according to the Business Leadership Network, a local group recently formed to encourage and educate businesses about hiring special needs employees.

Now is the time for business owners to look at their operation and see the possibilities for paying jobs for those who have the skills. Local agencies provide job coaches, expertise, and are ready to help.

By Cathy Feemster, managing editor. This article appeared in the November 2013 issue of East Wichita News. Photo by Alan Aprilio on Unsplash – downloaded October 18, 2026.