Nonprofit Spotlight: ARC of the Treasure Coast

Job Training: Assists individuals with physical, mental and intellectual disabilities to secure competitive employment in their community.

Partnership: Alice’s Restaurant is sponsored by Boar’s Head

One of Six: Number of ARC of the Treasure Coast job training programs

Walk into Alice’s Family Restaurant and it looks like any other diner along Ocean Boulevard in Stuart. Except this place is special, in particular for people like Christina Frost, who has a developmental disability.

She beams with pride when asked about her job there. “I roll,” she said, referring to prepping the silverware wrapped in napkins. “I bus,” said the 25-year-old. She points to the jelly and condiments on the table, which she fills.

Frost is one of the about 40 individuals per year who go through the job-training program at Alice’s Restaurant, which is owned and run by the ARC of the Treasure Coast. The food service program in one of six employment programs that the ARC runs.

A $40,000 Community Foundation grant helps pay for a job coach, who individualizes training for each adult who wants to learn about work in the food service industry.

“We’re training them to wash dishes,” said Keith Muniz, president and CEO of ARC of the Treasure Coast. “We’re training them to be a server. Sometimes they’re chopping food. They bus tables. So, there’s a variety of different jobs.”

Dawn Melead, a job coach that works with Frost, sat with her, helping her talk about her duties. Some of Melead’s trainees can be ready to start work within a few days, while others can take months.

Some of the trainees stay on to work at Alice’s. Some move on to work at other restaurants. Still others find that the food service industry is not for them.

For Frost and others like her, the job training program can be life-changing.

“It just empowers them, gives them the freedom to live a life that you or I want to live,” Muniz said. “It gives them the opportunity to live, work, play, and pray in their community, just like any one of us would want to.”