New Haven Independent

Meet Jessica Guardino. In her view, Thanksgiving isn’t primarily about food. It’s about being part of something “larger than ourselves.”

Guardino made that comment Friday as she announced that she and her ten classmates plan to raise money for toys for the kids at Life Haven, a shelter for abused women and their children.

Guardino and her classmates are intellectually disabled 18-21-year-olds enrolled in the Board of Education’s vocational training program, known as the Off Campus Classroom located at BOE facilities at 580 Ella Grasso Boulevard. They gathered with their families and teachers (like Sean Phostole and Lori Torello, pictured above with Jessica) in a turkey-decorated classroom to celebrate Thanksgiving early. It was a luncheon filled with reasons for thanks.

Although dealt autism and other disabling conditions early in life, they wrote and delivered speeches of thanks at Friday’s event.

The Board of Ed has four Off Campus Classrooms for the young adults in the program; each center has about ten students. The students learn basic academics, but the focus is internships where they learn basic job skills. The program’s other sites — at Saint Raphael’s, Jewish Home for the Aged, and North Haven’s Gateway Community College campus — have participants with less severe disabilities.

“These kids are so wonderful,” said Torello, who has been teaching for going on three years, “but also so vulnerable. The way we teach is that we go over basic budgeting, for example, and then we take the kids right into the bank. Or we teach them about government and make a trip to city hall (this day city hall, in the form of the mayor, came by for some of the early turkey parts and the collard greens); and when we teach about transportation, we ride a bus, a taxi, or a van with the kids. The idea is maximize independence.”

Some of the stores where the young adults have jobs are A & P, Loews, Advance Auto, and Stop & Shop. Officially termed “student interns,” the students are paid a minimal stipend for their work, not by the employer, but by the Board of Education.

Eighteen-year-old John Cheeseman, for example, works at Burger King three mornings a week. He cleans and fills bins and does other kinds of work. He hasn’t decided what he’s going to focus on; there are many more internships for him in the coming years.

His mom, Nancy, said she is particularly grateful this Thanksgiving to hear John’s laughter, especially when John and his twin brother Anthony get together to watch Abbot and Costello on TV. Both boys were born premature, at about three pounds. (John’s over 200 now, she said, with a glance of motherly amazement.). That was the origin of their developmental problems. The family, Nancy Cheeseman said, went through an agony of John being bullied and their thinking he was learning to read, but he was not, until he transferred to the Celentano School.

“There were loving teachers there, and then, luckily, the teachers were able to accompany him to Cross where half his classes were mainstreamed — as in art and gym — and he had specialized help in academics. At 17, he aged out of Cross and came here.When he finishes here at the Off Campus Classroom, when he’s 21, he’ll go back to Cross and participate in a formal graduation.”

John’s grandparents, John and Anne, who helped raise the twins, were also deeply grateful. “He’s in better condition than some of the other kids,” said his grandfather, and the grandmother added, “John’s a sweet loving boy. The parents of some of the other kids on the program often call up,” she said, “and ask John to come over and settle down their kids.”

“We thought we had retired,” Anne Cheeseman added, but they retired directly into helping their daughter with the boys. They’ve been aided and guided by participating in “Grandparents Raising Grandchildren,” a program run by the Consultation Center, and, most recently by Nancy’s retiring herself, after 25 years with AT&T. “Now that the boys are 18,” she said, “they are eligible for social security, and I can give my parents, finally, a break. There’s a lot to be thankful for.”

So when we, some ten days from now, have our own Thanksgivings, it won’t hurt also to remember this one.

Food for this event was provided by the Ferraro’s and Lucibella stores on Grand Avenue. Those interested in supporting either the toy drive or other aspects of the Off Campus Classroom’s activities should contact Catherine Sullivan DeCarlo here.