San Joaquin County special education students to sell handmade gifts at Holiday Boutique

Angelaydet Rocha, The Record
·4 min read
Last year's cocoa bomb boxes were made by Kimball High School students.
Last year's cocoa bomb boxes were made by Kimball High School students.

Cocoa bombs, arts and crafts can all be found at the Seventh Annual Entrepreneurial Business Holiday Boutique at the Wentworth Education Center at the San Joaquin County Office of Education, where San Joaquin County Special Education students will be selling gifts they created this holiday season.

“It gives our students an opportunity to work on the job skills without a lot of pressure, and also, the students making the products, they get to see the whole process from beginning to end, like a microbusiness,” said Danielle McPherson, special education teacher for the San Joaquin County Office of Education at Kimball High School.

Her class of 13 students at Kimball High School has been working on handmade cocoa bombs for the past week to sell at the holiday boutique. This is the second year her class is making them for sale, but this year, instead of selling 200, they will be selling 600 cocoa bombs.

Her class plans on using the raised funds from the sales to host a prom in April.

“They're really working for that and they're really excited,” McPherson said.

Those interested in buying will have three different cocoa bomb boxes to choose from. All boxes have two cocoa bombs, crushed candy cane mix, marshmallows and an ornament. The options are two milk chocolate, two Mexican Abuelita flavored or two cocoa bombs one of each flavor.

“The students have been participating in all aspects as far as even making the cupcake boxes, putting the stickers on the boxes, packaging orders, and also coloring ornaments, because each order will come with a little ornament,” McPherson said.

Boxes will be sold for $10 each.

The holiday boutique is “fun, encouraging and special,” she said.

More:Here's where you can donate toys in Stockton this holiday season

Students participating in the holiday boutique are part of the San Joaquin County Office of Education WorkAbility I program, a grant-based program that provides employment opportunities for special education students.

“What makes it unique are really our students and our students' unique needs that they have. Many of our students do have a variety of different disabilities,” Frank Souza, program manager for WorkAbility I, said. “But what this really showcases is their ability to you know, overcome some of the disabilities or even use some of their disabilities as what may be seen as a disadvantage as an advantage.”

Ten different classes across the county are set to participate in the holiday boutique with students from Kimball High School, Tracy Unified Young Adult Program, Lincoln High School and others.

Ornaments decorated by Kimball High School students.
Ornaments decorated by Kimball High School students.

The students have various disabilities, some of which include: autism, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, visually impaired or blind, deaf or hard of hearing, and other health impairments Souza said.

Items that students will be selling will be handmade or stuff that they grew. Souza said, in the past students have sold homemade jam with fruits they grew.

Prices will range from as low as $1 to as high as $2, with payments only being accepted in cash.

“A big part of this is the students working on making change, counting up the correct amount of change for the public,” Souza said.

Six of McPherson's students will be at the holiday boutique working on their customer service skills.

“My students are severely handicapped, so this event is just really special because ... it gives the opportunity for them to participate,” McPherson said. “This event gives them the opportunity to work on necessary job skills for them so that we could eventually work towards something in public, like a job in public.”

Due to COVID-19 students haven’t been able to work with local businesses, but the program hopes to change that soon.

“We'd love to get back in the community, and if you're a business that's willing to have students from the WorkAbility program work at your local business, your place of business, we greatly appreciate that,” Souza said.

Kimball High School student Sin-Ai Alexander with some of this year's handmade cocoa bombs.
Kimball High School student Sin-Ai Alexander with some of this year's handmade cocoa bombs.

If you go 

When: 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8

Where: Wentworth Education Center, Chartville Conference Rooms, San Joaquin County Office of Education, 2707 Transworld Drive, Stockton

Admission: Free

Information: https://www.sjcoe.org/calendarDetails.aspx?ID=5142

This article originally appeared on The Record: San Joaquin students to sell handmade gifts at holiday boutique