Alan Nanes graduated in February 2025 and gained employment in April! This was his first paid job in over 15 years. Alan enjoyed his part-time role at the Philadelphia School District, Kensington Health Science Academy. Duties include classroom and cafeteria assistant, event set-up, and light maintenance. Alan is eligible to be called back to work this Fall when School resumes. Until then, he is seeking a volunteer job to keep busy and maintain his office professional skills and habits.

Alan was one of many whose vocational path was interrupted by the Pandemic of 2020.

Through his persistence and support from PA OVR, Philadelphia he returned to finish training at Sierra Group Academy. Without prior experience in data input, or computer skills, Alan’s custom training at Sierra focused on realistic goals and behavior training for a support personnel job, just as he attained.

Throughout training, Sierra staff worked closely with Alan, his family, his VRC, Ralph Zuccarini, and his other community support service providers to collaborate to make his job attainment a reality. Prior to training at Sierra, Alan had been accompanied by a personal supports worker, but through training, he became independent in his professional skills delivery. This gave him the pride and self- responsibility to be work-ready, while he mastered the basics of computer use for email, data input, and document creation. Thanks to the community collaborative approach between Alan, Sierra, and the other professionals involved, Alan has once again experienced the “power of a paycheck”.

In his free time, Alan stops by our Academy office during lunch break to say hello to the team and students! His advice to others who have never worked or been out of the workplace due to any type of disability.

“If I can do it, you can too – or at least give it a try.”