During his internship with Project SEARCH, Aramiz Williams, a Socorro High School student, gained valuable job skills and work experience. He also learned about the importance of good character and the positive impact he has made by helping people.
“It teaches you so much,” Williams said. “It pretty much upholds the standard of what we should be as young adults to be able to help our society, too. You're just a small piece that makes a really big difference in other people's lives.”
Williams was one of seven students who celebrated completing their yearlong internships at the Hospitals at Providence East campus through Project SEARCH on May 15.
Project SEARCH is an international program that prepares adult students with disabilities for competitive and integrated employment.
Since 2019, the Socorro Independent School District has collaborated with the Hospitals of Providence on Project SEARCH to provide students, such as Williams, with valuable internships. Students in the program acquire competitive, transferable, and marketable skills. They also gain independence, confidence, self-esteem, and maturity.
"I just needed an opportunity just for me to help my family and then also to get closer to my end goal and join the Marine Corps," Williams said. He was offered a full-time job as a transporter at the hospital after finishing the internship.
In the US, the national average of employment for individuals with disabilities is 22%. Project SEARCH is an excellent opportunity for students to develop the necessary abilities and skill sets to succeed in the workforce.
Monica Gasca, SISD Project SEARCH instructor, said that due to the collaboration with the other community partners, including Emergence Health Network, Workforce Solutions Borderplex, Empowering Hands, Texas Workforce Solutions and the El Paso Community Foundation, Project SEARCH has successfully helped nearly all the students in its last five cohorts find jobs and, in some years, the program has achieved 100% employment.
“We all come together to make this possible,” Gasca said. “Like we say, ‘It takes a village’ and because of that village, we are getting the outcomes that we desire.”
This year, out of the seven interns who completed the program, three have been hired at the Hospitals of Providence campuses, and one has been employed in the community. The remaining three interns will continue to work with Empowering Hands, an employment service agency, to secure employment.
During the ceremony, Tasha Hopper, chief executive officer for The Hospitals of Providence East, welcomed the hospital’s new employees to the team.
“We are so happy that you are part of our team,” Hopper said. “Patients are benefiting because of everything that you’ve done. Whether it’s helping bring them food, whether it’s helping the facilities department transporting them or helping clean, all of those are very important things.”
Robert Daniel interned in the hospital's SPD sterile processing department. He accepted a full-time job offer in the same department, where he sterilizes surgical instruments. Daniel said he was grateful for his family’s support during the program. He also thanked the hospital, his mentor, and his manager for believing in his abilities to excel in his job.
“The moral support that I got from my family, they pushed me very hard to succeed, and I'm very grateful that I was able to be in this program,” Daniel said.
Daniel’s mom, Pamela Hernandez, said Project SEARCH far exceeded her expectations. She said the program not only provided her son with job skills but also helped him develop valuable social skills, boosting his self-confidence and creating opportunities for a brighter future.
“I would recommend the program to any parent of a child with a disability because I think sometimes, we think that they can’t do the job, but they can,” Hernandez said. “We just have to trust in them and trust in the program which I do, and I hope that this program continues, and they have many more graduates.”
On May 1, SISD and its community partners welcomed the 2024-25 Project SEARCH interns at a signing ceremony at the Hospitals of Providence East. Eleven interns signed their pledge to commit to the program.
Project SEARCH graduation event photos
Project SEARCH signing event photos