Special Needs School Has Its Own Ice Cream Shop

Tobinworld, a K-12 school for autistic and emotionally disturbed children in California, offers a very unique program.  They have their very own not-for-profit Baskin-Robbins ice cream store on campus.  The store is used to motivate students and modify behavior.  Teachers provide students with reward tokens for a job well done that can be redeemed for ice cream.  Moreover, older students are able to gain real life experience by working at the shop.  Many of the student employees were able to obtain real employment upon graduation.

Twenty-six teenagers work at the school's Baskin-Robbins. They apply for the positions like real employees do and undergo a pre-employment interview. On the job, they wear official company uniforms. They are not paid for their work at the not-for-profit store.

This is proof that lots of wonderful things can be accomplished with a good scoop of ice cream.

Bob Pool of the Los Angeles Times has more: Link