Inside a ballroom at Mobile’s Battle House Hotel, friends and family gathered on a Monday to celebrate a milestone: 13 graduates completing Project Search, a Mobile County Public School program designed to help students with special needs prepare for the workforce.
Over the course of the school year, the graduates spent their time working and learning job skills at two Downtown Mobile hotels, the Renaissance Riverview Plaza and the Battle House. The goal of the program is to give students with special needs hands-on training in real workplace settings, building the kind of experience and confidence that can translate directly into employment after graduation.
“This program was amazing,” said CJ Walker, one of the Project Search graduates. “It was amazing since August the 11th 2021.”
Walker’s journey through the program illustrates how it is designed to work. He began in the hotel’s housekeeping department, working alongside a mentor to learn how to properly clean rooms. He performed well enough that the hotel later hired him to work in the restaurant instead, where he now works as a steward. “I am in the kitchen as a steward and so I wipe the dishes and I check the pots and pans, dirty dishes and plates and silverware,” he said.
Participants in the program spent the majority of the school year actually working inside the hotels, while the remaining time was spent with Project Search instructors covering additional job skills. Of the 13 students who completed the program this year, five have already been hired at the two hotels where they trained.
“That’s why we work with them all year about is to get them employment and it’s awesome to watch them grow in this process and get their jobs,” said Christine Wells, a Project Search instructor.
Project Search is a nationwide program, operating in more than 200 locations across 43 states. It has had a presence in Mobile County for the past decade, though this marks the first year the program has placed students at the two Downtown Mobile hotels. Hotel staff say they are already looking toward continuing the partnership in future years.
“They started this program at the hotels and we feel that this will be long lasting for us,” said Teresa Arnold, who works with the Riverview and Battle House hotels. “It has been beneficial for us because it helped us with our mentors here at the hotel that have showed them the different tasks.”
For Walker, whose time in Project Search has now come to a close, the most meaningful outcome is simple. “Good news is I got me a paycheck,” he said.