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(music)
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So many people are sitting around saying,
"That job isn't quite exactly what
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I want, I want something else." And
something else," and all of a sudden it's
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three years later and they still aren't
working. Hey, if it means cooking
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hamburgers at McDonald's, get a job. Get
out there and get some experience and go
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after it. Now, that was one thing my father
taught me, and even beat into me from the
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time I was a little kid: "Nobody ever makes
a great success out of a life workin' 40
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hours a week. When he was 14 and a half
years old, his father sent him to Omaha,
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Nebraska, with a whole trainload of sheep.
By himself. To sell the sheep.
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Fourteen-and-a-half years old! That's when
he had his first pair of long pants. He
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went and sold all the sheep and came home.
And he said, "He told me what to do, He
never told me how to do it."
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(laughter)
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In 1989, my brother and I and my folks
were trying to decide - my mother and my
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father had passed away in 1985 - we were
trying to decide what segment of the
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population, of the youth population, can
we help out. What can we do. And we sat
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down, and went through everything we could
think of. We said, "You know, young people
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with disabilities are making a tremendous
contribution to our company. We've been
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hiring them for years. But most of them
have- they're unemployed! And what we
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need to do is get in there and find a way
of helping these young people get
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full-time employment. So over the the past
23 years, Bridges has helped more than
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18,000 young people find meaningful
employment.
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(applause)
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What Bridges does...we go work with the
special education groups and the vocational
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rehab groups and so forth in the various
cities we're working with. They identify
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students who could possibly be Bridges
candidates. Our employer representatives
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work with these young men and women,
and we train them how to make an
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application for a job, how to interview,
how to perform work, how to have
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responsibility, how to do day-to-day job
responsibilities. I spoke today about this
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sweet girl named Maria in Dallas. Hired
by the Bank of America, and they'd never
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anybody out of the program. She has spina
bifida, she could barely walk. But, you
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know, she said, "People don't think I can
do anything because I can't walk straight."
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But the Bank of America hired her. She is
a sensation! I mean, she's had three
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promotions, they've hired 32 people since
from the Bridges program, and because
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she is so darn good. These kids are great
for the team morale. I mean, people who
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work with them say, "Here is someone who
is truly excited about their job!"
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(laughter)
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I mean, wow! They show up, they work hard,
they're happy, they're just excited to be
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there and be performing a useful service.
And it's good for everybody!
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We deal with 4,800 different employers
down through the years. I mean, there
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are a lot of employers out there. And
it's usually we're educating the kids how
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to apply for jobs, we're also educating
the employers how to work with people with
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disabilities, and how to be comfortable
with them. And the comfort level is the
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most important thing- we can get them
comfortable with working with young people
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and know best how they can apply their
individual talents, and it's a no-brainer.
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These kids can really make contributions.
They can help us, they can with our
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morale, they can help with our bottom line,
they can help with our participation in
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the community. You know, it's a terrific
opportunity for them, to really bring
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these young people into the community and
the business community.