Tinley facility offers simulated on-the-job training in specialized fields
It's only a village but it represents a world of opportunity for the students and adults who rely on St. Coletta's of Illinois to help them transition to paid employment.
Transition Town, a newly designed space within the Tinley Park facility, offers simulated on-the-job training in the fields of baking, food service, general store and janitorial services.
While job training has long been part of St. Coletta's mission, the new town will enable participants to acquire skills in environments that closely resemble the work world.
A bakery, a general store and laundry facilities simulate life within a community, said Annette Skafgaard, executive director of St. Coletta's.
Participants learn culinary, janitorial and subcontracting skills through the various programs. Recently, Skafgaard had the idea to cluster the skill development area into a “town,” complete with a mural to reflect the transitional skills the students and adults are learning.
“There's also a classroom in here where they learn functional and life skills, your basics, such as how to behave socially, how to make sure hygiene is correct,” she said.
Funded through donations, Transition Town cost about $30,000 and will officially open May 19, with an open house reception from 2 to 5 p.m.
Skafgaard said the Illinois State Board of Education mandates that students age 14-22 who have developmental delays go through transition training, which often serves as a gateway to the workforce.
“Also, we have clients in our adult program who can benefit from this,” she said. “CMS, centers for Medicare and Medicaid, are also mandating that they prefer our clients be out working in an integrated community versus being in a workshop. So this (new program) will be twofold for us.”
St. Coletta's provides services for at least 200 adults, most of whom live in area group homes, who visit the facility regularly, Skafgaard said.
“We figure 5 to 10 percent could be put through this program to see if we can integrate them out into the community,” she said.
The program provides culinary classes and Department of Sanitation license training, she said.
“Participants learn how to work in either a bakery or the cafe. And then they can go out into the community,” she said. “We've had 100 percent success.”
The baked goods are sold in the on-site cafe located in the front of the facility, she said.
“We've had such success with our culinary classroom program that we decided we were going to expand on it and utilize this space,” Skafgaard said. “We wanted to do something fun.”
Local artist Raye Anne Saunoris helped bring Transition Town to life with brightly painted murals.
Some of the students and adults at St. Coletta's helped, as did her own son, a student at Mount Carmel High School.
Saunoris, a mother who lives in Country Club Hills, lost her first two children in infancy nearly 20 years ago.
Since then, the mother of two boys said, art has helped her heal. She has illustrated children's books, painted murals and entered Tinley Park's annual Benches on the Avenue project.
She said the St. Coletta's project was particularly “close to her heart.”
“Had my son lived, he probably would have used these services. So my heart is big for these people,” she said. “This is who I want to work with.”
The mural project was a transition in itself, Saunoris said.
“When I first started, I was using a Pepto-Bismol pink (on the bakery site) and people here were like, ‘Ugh, what an ugly color,' ” she said. “But now that they see the finished product, they love it.”
Indeed. Among her biggest fans is 20-year-old Demi Evans, who lives in Frankfort, because Saunoris inadvertently painted her likeness into a park scene.
“I am famous,” said Evans, as she folded laundry.
Sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Coletta's opened in 1949. Located at 18350 Crossing Drive in Tinley Park, it offers educational, residential business and support services to students and adults with developmental delays. It also houses the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. School for Exceptional Children. For information on the open house, call 708-342-5246 or go to
