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Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 9:01 PM
Subject: BlindNews: NGTC,area employers join celebration of Disability
Employment AwarenessMonth (Features Danny Dyer)
> The Northeast Georgian, GA, USA
> Wednesday, October 11, 2006
>
> NGTC, area employers join celebration of Disability Employment Awareness
> Month (Features Danny Dyer)
>
> By Kimberly Brown
>
> Caption: Danny Dyer speaks at Friday's fifth-annual ADA Awareness Lunch
> and Learn while David Turner interprets using sign language. Also at the
> table are Jessie Dyer, Lou Ellen McMillan, vocational rehabilitation
> counselor, Seth Dyer and interpreter Mandy Stone. Staff/Kimberly Brown
>
> On Friday, employers and Georgia Department of Labor (DOL) employees
> honored local businesses that hire people with disabilities.
>
> The group gathered at North Georgia Technical College for the fifth-annual
> "ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] Awareness" Lunch and Learn. The
> lunch was sponsored by the DOL Cleveland, Cumming and Gainesville
> Rehabilitation Services, Blairsville, Habersham and Toccoa Career Centers,
> and the Georgia Mountain Workforce Investment Board from Gainesville.
>
> October has been designated as "National Disability Employment Awareness
> Month," and the Georgia DOL presented awards to three area employers who
> make a difference by hiring employees with disabilities.
>
> Receiving awards this year were Unicoi State Park & Lodge; Peggy Barber,
> personnel director of Wal-Mart in Clayton; and Karen Janssen, manager of
> Wal-Mart in Toccoa.
>
> "This group of people brings to the table a different talent and resource
> for those who are trying to improve their lives," said Dr. Ruth Nichols,
> president of NGTC, to the DOL employees and the employers represented at
> the lunch,
>
> "Each of us has something that challenges us in our lives," she said.
> "Those of you who assist people who have barriers they bump up against
> every day, I commend you."
>
> Keynote speaker was Danny Dyer, a Toccoa Wal-Mart employee who has been
> blind since birth. Dyer previously worked in Christian broadcasting in
> Toccoa.
>
> "If it's an honest, moral job, it's a job that's worth doing and doing
> well," Dyer said, in a straightforward, witty and touching speech.
>
> When hiring, employers should look beyond a resumé, he said. Conventional
> wisdom is for employees to go with a job they've always done, but that's
> not always the best thing to do. Likewise, employers look at a person's
> resumé, but he may be "burned out on what he's been doing for 30 years."
>
> Dyer said his heroes are Karen Janssen, his son, Seth, who also works at
> Wal-Mart in Toccoa, and his wife, Jessie Dyer.
>
> "[Janssen] has attempted to give people a chance, to match people to what
> they can do," Dyer said. "There's a person to match the job you have, if
> you give them a chance."
>
> Larry Shedd, rehabilitation unit manager at the DOL in Cleveland, said,
> "We're here to give hope to those who didn't have any in the vocational
> sense. We're here to help them get out and go to work."
>
> In presenting the awards, Shedd said Wal-Mart in Toccoa has more than 340
> employees, and they have hired "28 or so people with disabilities."
>
> "If we could get all employers to commit to that level, just think of all
> the people we could put in jobs," he said.
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> http://www.thenortheastgeorgian.com/articles/2006/10/11/news/business/01business.txt
>
>
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