Photos: How the Pandemic Affected Workers With Intellectual Disabilities
•
Some workers lost their jobs because businesses closed or because they had to stay at home. Others were able to work through the coronavirus pandemic because they were in essential jobs.
18 photos
1/18
Chinook Enterprises
Terry Hall had worked for Skagit Horticulture for more 30 years but lost his job there during the coronavirus pandemic.
2/18
The Creative Living Community of Connecticut
Mitch and Ryan at a flower stand in Connecticut. The Creative Living Community runs a greenhouse and a farm and was able to employ field hands and farm stand workers during the pandemic.
3/18
Kandi Clubine bags groceries and collects carts at a Fry's Food Stores supermarket in Glendale, Arizona. She was able to work through the pandemic.
4/18
Jamie Beck cleans rooms at Indiana University Health Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, Indiana. She has not missed a day of work. Patients with COVID-19 were housed separately in the hospital.
5/18
Curt watering soil in a greenhouse operated by the Creative Living Community of Connecticut.
6/18
The Creative Living Community of Connecticut
A Creative Living Community of Connecticut worker holds up gardening signs.
7/18
A worker at the Creative Living Community of Connecticut makes his first sale selling popcorn. The community has a greenhouse and a farm and farmstead.
8/18
Debbie Hibben
From left: Debbie and Hannah Hibben dressed in yellow and blue, the colors of Down syndrome awareness. Hannah Hibben kept one of her part-time jobs in the Atlanta suburbs, at an e-waste recycling center, but had to give up two others, at a yogurt shop and a cookie store.
9/18
Workers at Hugs Cafe in McKinney, Texas. The cafe opened five years as a place where developmentally and intellectually disabled adults could learn job skills.
10/18
Workers at Hugs Cafe in McKinney, Texas, which had gotten about 75% of its funding from selling sandwiches.
11/18
A worker at Hugs Cafe in McKinney, Texas, which began making sandwiches to donate to people without enough food after the coronavirus pandemic began.
12/18
A Hugs Cafe worker in McKinney, Texas. Workers said they would be comfortable providing curbside service.
13/18
A Hugs Cafe worker in McKinney, Texas. Among the ways the cafe kept going: delivering bulk grocery items and gardening kits.
14/18
A worker at Hugs Cafe in McKinney, Texas. Its innovation of providing food for residents without enough has proved popular.
15/18
A Hugs Cafe worker in McKinney, Texas. The cafe may continue offering free food to people without enough even after the pandemic is under control.
16/18
A Hugs Cafe worker in McKinney, Texas. Workers who have stayed home during the pandemic contributed by writing notes to include with sandwiches.
17/18
Eric Greenberg, an employee at The Alchemist brewery in Vermont, is back at work after being furloughed early in the coronavirus pandemic.
18/18
Tara Audet works at The Alchemist, a brewery in Vermont. She was furloughed at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic but has since returned to work.
