Michael Lentz is good at working with his hands. Give him a chance, he’ll tell you all about some of the really cool things he’s built, remodeled or repaired. His time in a sheltered workshop earned him a reputation as a hard worker with a solid work ethic.
Last August he applied, and was accepted for an internship stint at Nebraska Medicine through Vodec’s “Project Search” training program. Project Search is a year-long internship program that assigns people to a series of work centers for training. Typically a program for students, Vodec’s project search is for adult job-seekers.
From the beginning, Mike showed that his reputation wasn’t a fluke. His first internship rotations were cleaning public bathrooms — to hospital standards. How’d he handle it? “Like a boss!”, states Sarah Miller Vodec’s Operations Director, “From the first day, he turned what some consider a menial task into an opportunity to meet people, make friends, and leave everybody smiling with one of his cheerful “have a good day” smiles!”
That kind of enthusiasm is contagious, and by the time he’d finished his first rotation cleaning bathrooms, the buzz was already starting. Mid-way through his second rotation, Mike landed a job offer from Nebraska Medicine to work as a Food Service Associate.
Mike is doing all the work, but the Vodec team standing beside him has helped with resumes, basic job skills and expectations, transportation, and helping locate potential employers. They’ve provided on-site coaching and reinforcement of good work habits.
