By the time payday comes around at First Step Workshop, some of the workers have already been talking about it for a week. For the adults with developmental disabilities who work at the Holbrook thrift store and training program, payday means a trip to the bank, a nice lunch out and the pride of having earned something of their own. It is a welcomed chance for normalcy and independence in the lives of people who have to fight harder than most to be seen as ordinary.
For Michelle Hale, director of First Step Workshop, payday is one of the clearest reminders of what the organization is really about: giving members the same ordinary experiences everyone else wants from work, independence and community.
“They may have some challenges, and they may have a different sensory input, the way they process things, but they’re still people just like everybody else,” Hale said. First Step Workshop is easy to mistake as just a thrift store. People drop off clothing, toys, household goods and other items. Shoppers come in looking for a bargain but behind the storefront is something much bigger.
First Step Workshop is a nonprofit program contracted through the Arizona Division of Developmental Disabilities. Its members qualify through the state and often live with developmental disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or cognitive disorders.
The thrift store is part of what the program calls center-based employment. Members learn how to show up for work, dress for work, follow expectations and build the habits needed to hold a job.
They work seven-hour days, 35 hours a week and the routine is not pretend work. It is work, with expectations, responsibilities, co-workers and a paycheck. “Our goal is to train them to eventually be able to go out into the community and hold a job in the community,” Hale said.
First Step Workshop also has group-supported employment contracts, including with the Navajo County and Holbrook High School, where members go out into the community and perform cleaning work for pay. Hale said those opportunities give members a sense of purpose, accomplishment and a visible role in the community.
The organization also operates a day program for members who are not in the work program, are waiting to become eligible or have aged out of work and want to retire. In that setting, members work on daily living skills such as hygiene, cooking, mobility and maintaining the abilities they already have.
For someone in the day program, success might not look like a job in town. It might be learning a new skill after months of practice, getting out of the house or being able to do one more thing independently than they could do before.
When those moments happen, Hale said, staff members feel them deeply. She spoke about members of the day program who practice the same skill over and over again for months, sometimes with very little progress. Then, “All of a sudden one day they just do it, and you’re like, you gotta leave the room because you want to cry,” Hale said. “It’s phenomenal when that happens.”
There are currently about 10 members between First Step Workshop’s two programs. Some come from Holbrook, while others are picked up from Winslow and Snowflake, making transportation one of the things that keeps the program possible for families across the region.
First Step is also one of the few work programs left in the area. Hale said similar programs have closed over the years, including programs in the Show Low area, leaving First Step Workshop as one of the only options on this side of the state.
That makes the small thrift store feel bigger than its walls. It is a workplace, a classroom, a social space and a bridge between members and the community around them. The bridge does not always go as far as Hale would like. The hope is to help members gain enough experience to work in the community, but Hale said the biggest barrier is not the members. “It is finding employers that are willing to hire someone that’s going to take a little extra supervision, a little extra coaching,” Hale said.
That frustration comes from knowing what the members are capable of. Hale described them as dedicated workers who take pride in being there and hate missing work. “These are some of the best workers you’ll ever see,” Hale said. “They’re very dedicated to their jobs.”
The work is also about changing old ideas. Hale has spent about 25 years in the field and said people with disabilities were once kept apart from the rest of the community in ways many people today may not fully understand.
That mindset has not disappeared completely. Hale remembered walking into a fast-food restaurant with a group of people with disabilities and watching people on one side of the restaurant get up and move away. “There’s still that old-school thinking,” Hale said.
“They have the same basic rights you and I have, and people don’t understand that,” Hale said. “They have the right to get married. They have the right to have those relationships. They have the right to live in a safe environment.”
The thrift store itself depends on the community. First Step is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and relies heavily on donations to keep the store running. Clothing and toys come in regularly, but Hale said the store especially needs household goods and other items in clean, working condition.
Still, the gratitude is real. Donations help pay wages, keep the store open and allow First Step Workshop to help others when the need is urgent. Hale recalled a family that lost everything in a fire and was told to come to the store and take what they needed. It’s that kind of community passion at the heart of First Step Workshop.
Hale said the one thing the board is in a real need of is new board members. Some of the organization’s board members have served for decades and some were there at the beginning, when the program opened in 1980 under a different name.
Now, Hale said, the organization needs younger members, new ideas and people willing to help carry the work forward. The most important requirement is that board members keep the members’ best interests at the center of every decision. That is what the story keeps coming back to. Not the thrift store, not the donations and not even the paycheck by itself. At First Step, a paycheck is proof that someone showed up, did the work and got to take part in the same ordinary life everyone else is trying to build.
