Episode Description
When corporate job sites closed their doors to transition students post-COVID, Sandy Morrill refused to accept that limitation. Instead, she partnered with her team to launch an on-campus thrift shop that transformed a vacant computer room into a functional work environment, vocational training ground, and unexpected bridge between students with disabilities and their general education peers. Discover how one Connecticut transition coordinator turned obstacles into opportunities—and how you can replicate this model in your own school.
Noteable Quotes
“We are graduating students not to the couch, but to productive, fulfilled lives.” [00:04:17]
“The beauty is seeing general ed students’ kindness and patience while our students count change.” [00:18:00]
“I would be happy to answer questions about launching something like this for your program.” [00:37:44]
“The thrift shop serves dual populations: our students gain skills, families in hardship find dignity.” [00:15:04]
“It’s functional, it’s always open, and it’s offering opportunities we can’t get anywhere else.” [00:18:15]
Full Podcast Transcript
Lighthouse Therapy (00:01.102)
Hello everyone and welcome to the brighter together podcast. My name is Janet Courtney and my special guest today is Sandy Morrill. Sandy is the transition coordinator at Shelton school district. And that’s in Shelton, Connecticut, which I asked her, I’m like, is that on the line up to new Haven? Because we both know that area and, and sure enough right there. So Sandy, welcome to the show.
Sandy Morrill (00:18.382)
you
Sandy Morrill (00:23.662)
And yes, it is. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Lighthouse Therapy (00:30.392)
Well, it’s a pleasure to have you here and that is okay. We all have animals, so don’t worry about it. I certainly have mine. Mine are just like put away with somebody watching them. So tell us Sandy a little bit about Shelton and your job at Shelton and kind of how you got to where you are.
Sandy Morrill (00:35.188)
Hahaha!
Sandy Morrill (00:48.558)
Okay, so we’re a town, relatively small town. It is considered a city and we are probably our population is about 35,000 people. We have about, we have seven elementary schools. We have a five, six school, a seven, eight school, and then we have our high school. And my position, this is my 31st year.
in Shelton. I grew up here, so I am Shelton born and bred and many people in this town are. It’s one of those kinds of towns. yeah, so I started out teaching. I graduated with a degree in special education and psychology and I started out in the resource setting in the middle school.
Lighthouse Therapy (01:20.075)
nice, wow.
Lighthouse Therapy (01:28.42)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (01:44.47)
And I did that for a few years. And then I went to one of our, one of our, schools in town, our grammar schools in town, elementary schools in town, that was on the, on the lower socioeconomic end. And it has since closed down, but it was a wonderful, wonderful school. And I spent about 13 years there doing special education and resource and push in and, and inclusion. And then I went.
And I switched gears entirely and I did enrichment for a few years when, you know, for gifted and talented students. I moved from that to, I thought, well, let me try general ed for a while. And I did general education in sixth grade, middle school reading for another 12 years. And about three years ago, I decided to.
Lighthouse Therapy (02:19.637)
Mmm, nice.
Sandy Morrill (02:41.422)
follow my special education heart. And I think those of us that teach special education know that pull and that draw that keeps us there. And I went back in a very different setting. And where I am now is I’m housed at the high school, but it is a transition program for the 18 to 22 year old students who
Lighthouse Therapy (02:50.016)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (03:08.846)
who need that extra support an extra few years before they move on to post-secondary or whatever it is their path is going to be after their 22nd year of school or of life really, their 22nd year.
Lighthouse Therapy (03:22.136)
Right.
Lighthouse Therapy (03:28.292)
So it’s always different. Every state defines 22 as different. So is it till they turn 23 in Connecticut or is it till they turn 22?
Sandy Morrill (03:31.841)
Yes.
Sandy Morrill (03:38.766)
So, so fairly recently when I first started, so it would be about three years ago, they had just switched over. Uh, the year before I started, if a student turned 22 in April, they were done and you know, they would age out in the month of April right after their 22nd birthday. And when I started, uh, they expanded it to complete their 22nd school year. So they do get to.
Lighthouse Therapy (04:06.596)
Gotcha. Finish.
Sandy Morrill (04:08.234)
which to me makes absolute sense, you know, to finish out the year.
Lighthouse Therapy (04:11.8)
Yeah. Yeah. Letting them go in, in November or January or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Crazy. So that’s great.
Sandy Morrill (04:17.588)
Or could be October or yeah, exactly. yes. So that was, that was definitely a good decision on the state’s part. And I know the state of Connecticut is, is very focused right now on transition and really, you know, putting, putting districts to task in terms of making sure we are graduating.
and aging out our students not to the couch, but to productive, fulfilled, supported as needed, safe and happy lives. And that’s kind of where I come in is to try to facilitate that for the families. That’s what’s great about this job is I think more than any other position I’ve had in the district.
Lighthouse Therapy (04:56.132)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Sandy Morrill (05:13.632)
I work with families so much more. I know these families so, well. The brothers, the sisters, the secondary supports. It’s really wonderful.
Lighthouse Therapy (05:21.464)
Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (05:27.256)
Awesome. you’re helping them from basically what would have been graduation had they been in a mainstream regular class to finding something that they like, that they can do, that really focuses on life skills and work skills beyond education, behind the high school.
Sandy Morrill (05:46.574)
Correct. Yes. And that’s a PPT decision, obviously. okay. So during the, their annual review, their PPT within the last, say their junior or senior year, they will invite me if this is a consideration for them. And the
Lighthouse Therapy (05:50.86)
Right. Well, what, me that acronym again.
Lighthouse Therapy (06:03.95)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Lighthouse Therapy (06:10.029)
Okay.
Sandy Morrill (06:13.322)
I’ll inform the families of the services that we provide and then the family forms a decision together with their student and the team about whether or not the transition program will be their next step after graduation.
Lighthouse Therapy (06:28.516)
So PPT is like just the team. that the acronym for the team? Okay. Okay. there you go. Thank you.
Sandy Morrill (06:32.748)
Yep, the planning and placement team. Yep. So that would include, yep, that would include speech language, OT, PT, if they’re involved, occupational therapy, physical therapy. Although those supports do begin to fade out a little bit as students get older, but with many, with many students, because we do have varying needs. The students…
Lighthouse Therapy (06:43.203)
Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (06:50.198)
Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (07:00.451)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (07:02.154)
that end up requiring transition services for whatever it is their particular needs are. It could be to access post-secondary education. So how will I apply to college? Can I audit a class with my support and with the support of the staff members?
How will I fill out applications? We do a lot of mock interviewing and things like that. And then we have our students too that, you know, their paths are different and they may end up in group settings and day programs where they’ll be volunteering or maybe sub-minimum wage employment, but productive members of society in
Lighthouse Therapy (07:47.182)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (07:58.164)
as best as they can be.
Lighthouse Therapy (08:00.62)
Right, right. And you guys have some really cool programming going on. Tell us about that.
Sandy Morrill (08:06.338)
So we do. So job sites are wonderful and we have several. We go to a couple of hotels. So we have vans that we can access on the program and every transition program, depending upon the funding of the district, of course, has different access and opportunities. We happen to have some drivers and job coaches.
and we have vans and we take the students out into the community as often as possible. So pretty much daily we are out in the community. We do buffet breakfast cleanups at certain hotels. We do preparatory and cleanup work at some of the banquet facilities in the area after their weekend weddings and events.
Lighthouse Therapy (08:58.083)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (08:59.33)
We also, we work at our local registrar of voters with more kind of clerical work and more repetitive tasks that certain students are definitely better at. We have a farm we go to, so we have students who prefer to be hands on and outside and.
We try to do interest inventories at the beginning of every school year, even with students that we know already, because at that age, we know that students’ interests change all the time. And we’re always planning and trying to access job sites that they will be interested in. However, you run into some liability issues. You run into some…
Lighthouse Therapy (09:38.788)
Of course,
Sandy Morrill (09:54.787)
I think ever since COVID, there have been some corporations that have been less open and willing to take on individuals, even though we’re fully insured and everything. We have to talk to corporate, and usually that’s code for no.
Lighthouse Therapy (10:13.634)
Yeah, that makes me sad. Yeah, that’s a no. Yeah, I get it. Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (10:20.974)
So what we decided to do is put our heads together and figure out, well, if we can’t get off site all the time, every day, if we can’t get every student off site, what can we do on site? And what we started is we opened up a thrift shop and we just launched this week. And it has been, I’ve received so much
Lighthouse Therapy (10:40.516)
Bye.
Sandy Morrill (10:49.262)
positive reinforcement about it, positive praise from students, from staff. So basically what we did is we spent the first half of the year finding a room, finding a space, and my administration has been absolutely phenomenal with their support in doing that. So if you think about years ago, we had those old
computer rooms where students would have to go to to get on a computer. They were all in one room and these big tables kind of hammered into the screwed into the floor where the wires would be attached to the computers and that’s how you would get your technology education. And so they dismantled one of those that was located right off of our media center. And what they did is
Lighthouse Therapy (11:26.444)
Yep.
Sandy Morrill (11:43.841)
our incredible maintenance staff set up a nice hanging pole in the middle of the room, dismantled and sanded down all of those tables, put up shelving for us. We, together with our administration, with my life skills teacher who teaches the ninth through 12th graders life skills, we…
Lighthouse Therapy (11:59.781)
Wow.
Sandy Morrill (12:11.358)
went on to all the buy nothing sites we could find and we reached out to area retail stores for racks. So we have all racks that we have in the room. And then we reached out to staff for high school appropriate clothing that the students would enjoy. And we had such a great turnout in terms of donations. And so we have a full
room where it’s we play music and we and we had balloons this week and we have this big grand opening and we are open during the students. So there’s study halls right in the media center. We’re located right off the media center and the students from the study halls are allowed to come in and sign in. So these are the regular high school students, the general ed population.
Lighthouse Therapy (12:42.084)
Wow.
Lighthouse Therapy (13:08.59)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (13:09.678)
And then during their lunch and their study periods, they’re allowed to come in with a pass. And so there was some logistical, you know, don’t want high school students wandering around saying they’re going to the thrift shop. So there was a lot of logistical things that we had to work out. And so now we’re fully staffed by the students in the transition program and in the life skills program. And it opens the door.
Lighthouse Therapy (13:21.636)
Right.
Sandy Morrill (13:39.343)
for so many different soft skills tasks for these students in terms of interacting with customers, managing money, even making change. We’re working on counting up to make change, next dollar up skills. We are working on the folding, the organizing, sizing.
Lighthouse Therapy (13:45.21)
yeah.
Sandy Morrill (14:07.31)
color organization. There are just umpteen, we didn’t even realize how many little tasks, we need receipts filled out. Let’s do this. Some things came up even just this week. Okay, so somebody doesn’t have money this week. Let’s make hold tickets. So then I had some of my more artistic students.
Lighthouse Therapy (14:16.172)
Right.
Lighthouse Therapy (14:21.07)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (14:35.382)
work on making some hold tickets where we would put items aside on hold for certain students in the general population. And they have been flocking in. And we even have prom dresses. The prom is coming up. So what my favorite thing about it is that it serves dual populations. It serves, you know,
Lighthouse Therapy (14:52.946)
wow.
Sandy Morrill (15:04.798)
my students in terms of developing those pre-vocational skills, but it also we keep our prices very, very, very reasonable so that it serves those students who, you know, maybe they can’t go to the fancy dress store and get themselves a prom dress or, you know, they can’t get to the mall necessarily.
Lighthouse Therapy (15:26.306)
Right?
Sandy Morrill (15:34.031)
So we also have given our social workers vouchers. So we wanted a way to provide opportunities for students who maybe have hardships, maybe are unhoused, maybe have had recent, you know, tragedies in their family where a fire or something. So the social workers and the guidance counselors
Lighthouse Therapy (15:34.126)
Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (15:48.686)
Right.
Lighthouse Therapy (15:52.878)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (16:03.224)
were given vouchers so that we didn’t have to look for names. don’t want it to be a super, we want it to be really subtle. So the students have vouchers and they’re able to get their items free of cost, obviously. And it’s.
Lighthouse Therapy (16:08.364)
Right, you don’t want to, yeah. Right, understood.
Lighthouse Therapy (16:18.98)
Wow, wow, that’s so who knew right? Well, I think God knew I think God knew that this is like, wow, just how everything comes together. So beautiful. So beautiful.
Sandy Morrill (16:29.268)
It really just really, so it was this idea and this, you know, this, saw this forming as the year went on and went on and we couldn’t wait to open. And finally we did. And it has just fulfilled. All of our, it surpassed all of our expectations really. And you know, we get returned customers. So next week we’re having our spring break, pre-spring break sale where,
Lighthouse Therapy (16:48.504)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (16:59.214)
You know, if you buy a certain number of spend $5, you get one item for free. So our prices are that low. Like a t-shirt is a dollar. Uh, long sleeve shirts are two or $3. And, um, the kids are walking around in our items. They’re doing, they’re going back to class, doing little fashion shows. And the great thing is, that thrifting is actually pretty popular right now. So we kind of came upon this at.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:07.789)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:26.519)
Yeah, it is.
Sandy Morrill (17:28.588)
just the right time and it’s exactly,
Lighthouse Therapy (17:30.478)
Yeah, there’s not a stigma. When you and I were growing up, if you went to the thrift store, was you were poor and you didn’t want to be seen dead with anything. Yeah, exactly. It’s not that way. It’s vintage now.
Sandy Morrill (17:39.222)
Yeah, you’re wearing the goodwill clothes, right?
Sandy Morrill (17:46.036)
It’s vintage and it’s the kids are loving it. And, and, and my students get to spend more time with non-disabled peers.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:50.713)
Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (17:56.675)
Yeah. and that’s that’s there. You cannot put a price tag on that one. You can’t get that kind of an interaction any other way than in a real setting. And that’s beautiful. Love that. Love that.
Sandy Morrill (18:00.91)
You
Sandy Morrill (18:08.94)
Yeah. And the beautiful thing for me is I’m used to my students and going out into the community and taking them out into the community and, and, you know, teaching them how to be appropriate and, and things like that. But the beauty of it for me is seeing the general ed population and their kindness and their patience. And they’re just standing there while
You know, the students using the calculator and counting out the money and bagging the clothing for them. And they’re there. It’s beautiful. It’s, it’s really been beautiful. So it’s functional in that we have this job site now that we don’t have to go very far to get to. It’s open all the time. We’re closed Mondays and Fridays for like prep day and cleanup day.
But that’s offering us opportunities, still work days for us, right? And we have these visions, we get together with our team and we’re like, let’s do 10 punches in a card and you get a free item. And so we’re really, really looking to make some really positive impact on the whole population of the school through this.
Lighthouse Therapy (19:07.716)
That’s work day. That’s still work. Yeah. And still work days. Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (19:35.012)
That’s fantastic. That is absolutely fantastic. So what did it take? Let’s go back to like, not right like the beginning, like how did it come about that you wanted to do this and what did it take to get to the point where it was a reality? Not necessarily done, but just a reality.
Sandy Morrill (19:37.838)
Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (19:54.593)
Okay, so it started out with a frustration. So as things often do, it started with a hurdle, an obstacle. I can’t get all of my students out at the same time. What can we do that’s productive and, you know, fulfilling in a day when we aren’t able to get everybody out at the same time.
Lighthouse Therapy (19:59.276)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (20:23.534)
And okay, well, we can’t do a coffee shop. There were parameters with our particular school with food and, and, know, the, the, the contract we have with the cafeteria, which, which a lot of people run into and, and totally understood. And, so, okay. So, you know, what else could we do? Well, we could make dog treats, a lot of, a lot of transition programs.
Lighthouse Therapy (20:33.796)
Mmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (20:39.682)
Understood. Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (20:53.398)
make the pet treats, which I think is wonderful too. But we sort of felt that that one was kind of covered. We sort of felt like, what different thing could we do? And it just so happens that our population has a lot of food allergies. So not everybody would be able to participate in that. So, okay, what can we do? And then we, I would love to say we came up with this on our own, but we saw another school.
on the news. So we saw, you know, our speech language pathologist came in one day, all fired up. I saw this thing on the news and I think we can do this. So then it was the three of us, the life skills teacher, myself, and the speech language pathologist traveled to the school. set up a time to meet with them. And we went to that school in Connecticut that
does somewhat the same thing and toured their program and got some ideas from them. That was at the end of last school year. So we had the seed, I would say toward the end of the last school year, we came back with it. And then over the summer, it was time for wear. And that was a bit of a hurdle because
Lighthouse Therapy (22:15.842)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (22:21.086)
space in our school is… yes. Yes. And… well, exactly. I mean, people are on carts driving around, right? Right? So… so there was one space that we looked at that was small and we weren’t… that was going to be our space and we were okay with it.
Lighthouse Therapy (22:22.474)
always premium. Always premium. Yes, I get that. Yeah. I was under the stairs as an SLP at the high school. yeah, I totally yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Sandy Morrill (22:46.264)
but it just wasn’t what we wanted it to be. And then our principal came through. She’s like, I have an idea. We have a computer room we do not use. It’s right off the library media center. There’s so much traffic there. It’s easily accessible to the students. I think it’s perfect. It’s just, we’re gonna need our maintenance crew to really get in there. And they, everybody just bought in.
Lighthouse Therapy (23:03.14)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (23:15.83)
Everybody just kind of was like, absolutely, this sounds like a great idea. And I really, I, it was definitely a team effort in terms of all of the stakeholders involved. And then the, so, so the space was probably took the longest in terms of making this happen. A lot of construction work and, and within a couple of weeks though, I would say we walked in the door from what.
Lighthouse Therapy (23:19.608)
Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (23:45.241)
had been this monstrosity of a computer room to this open space with shelves and hanging spaces. And then, you know, not a week later, one of our assistant principals came in and said, and he lives in a town way far out in Connecticut, and he’s on one of those by nothing social media websites. He’s like, this store is closing. They have racks. I have racks.
Lighthouse Therapy (23:53.998)
Wow.
Sandy Morrill (24:15.244)
So he’s on his way to get all these clothing racks for us. And those came in and it just, was definitely this wonderful team effort. And then the clothes started coming in and we weren’t sure how to do that at first. You who do we open this up to? How do we make sure we’re not getting, you know, I’m…
Lighthouse Therapy (24:17.666)
Wow.
Lighthouse Therapy (24:37.113)
Mm.
Sandy Morrill (24:41.442)
I’ve been teaching 31 years. don’t, the high schoolers don’t want my clothes. Like how do we get the message across that we want high school appropriate clothes? So we just kind of, you know, put it out there for the teachers and they came through and, and I mean, who doesn’t really want to get rid of their kids’ old clothes at this point and, and cleaning things out. So bags and bags of things. So then that.
Lighthouse Therapy (24:45.987)
Right.
Lighthouse Therapy (25:05.112)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (25:11.87)
was really a long process too of sorting through. not everything was exactly so.
Lighthouse Therapy (25:14.488)
Yeah. yeah. yeah. I’ve volunteered at some of those before. I totally know what you’re doing. It’s just a pile that seems like it’s never ending sometimes, right? Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (25:24.268)
Yes, but it ended up, you know, it was a really fantastic learning opportunity for the students. Do you see any stains on this? Do you see, would this be something appropriate to wear, you know, for a high school student? And then we really turned it into lessons. What season would you wear this in? And so we
Lighthouse Therapy (25:35.135)
yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (25:47.204)
yeah.
Sandy Morrill (25:48.513)
So we really incorporated the whole sorting and organizing into life skills lessons as well. And we happen to have a great space. have a washer dryer. So yeah, so we were able to wash and dry everything. Then we had to put out the call for hangers and bags. So all these things like would come up and it was…
Lighthouse Therapy (26:00.357)
wow.
Sandy Morrill (26:16.75)
kind of incremental steps like, great, we have all these clothes, but we need hangers now and we’re gonna put things in bags, we need bags now. So it was just kind of a call to arms of the staff. And eventually what we plan to do is open it up to the public.
Lighthouse Therapy (26:22.937)
Right.
Lighthouse Therapy (26:31.556)
Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (26:41.154)
I was gonna be one of my questions for you. So yes, awesome.
Sandy Morrill (26:43.978)
Yes, so that will probably be not this year. This year is probably our Workout the Kinks year. And that invites some different thought process in terms of security, hours, which students are able to stay, which staff are able to stay.
Lighthouse Therapy (26:49.284)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, understood.
Lighthouse Therapy (27:02.304)
huh.
Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (27:10.978)
You know, what days and times and, and so that’s a little bit of more, a little bit more logistical type of planning. so I think it’s been, it’s been helpful that we didn’t rush it. That, that it started as this, this visit that we made at the end of the school year last year. And I’m very happy, you know, in our heads we had, September we’ll open in September. It’ll be great. And it, it.
organically just didn’t happen that way, but I’m thrilled with the way it happened. I think it opened at just the right time.
Lighthouse Therapy (27:43.65)
Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (27:48.389)
So for those of you that are listening, today is April 1st, 2026. So at the end of March is when, so you had a whole semester and a half basically of work, but still, I mean, I was thinking about that and I’m like, that’s really not slow. I don’t think that’s slow at all when you think about launching a store and making sure that all of those pieces happen. I’m like, I’m amazed you got it done in a year.
Sandy Morrill (27:58.467)
Yes.
Lighthouse Therapy (28:17.124)
I’ll be honest with you, less than a year early. Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (28:17.482)
It, it was, yeah, it was, was really all together. It was, it was less than a year. and our woodworking group made signs. So I really, I mean, when I say it was really a school team effort, that’s absolutely no exaggeration. the students could not be more excited about it. So they,
Lighthouse Therapy (28:24.856)
Yeah.
Lighthouse Therapy (28:30.002)
nice.
Lighthouse Therapy (28:36.588)
A labor of love for sure, right?
Lighthouse Therapy (28:44.15)
Yeah, I bet.
Sandy Morrill (28:47.49)
They have, one of them had the idea, let’s have a Bluetooth speaker in there and play music. So now one of them is the DJ and they are playing, they are in charge of playing the music and.
Lighthouse Therapy (29:00.472)
You need to do some aroma therapy now. You know, they say there’s certain scents that make people want to buy and yeah.
Sandy Morrill (29:03.093)
Yes, well.
It is so funny that you say that because I was trying it. did smell like a secondhand shop. So, so it’s a closed door. There’s no real ventilation and we would open it up and I’m like, no, this, this, this smells like people aren’t going to want to shop here. So we got one of those lamps that lights the candle and heats it up without.
lighting a candle so that it’s not a fire hazard. So we have this great smell now in this store as well and people have actually commented on it.
Lighthouse Therapy (29:38.434)
Right. Right. Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (29:48.355)
Nice. Yeah, that’s one of the things that I always, and God bless Goodwill, I don’t mean to say anything bad about them, but boy, you go in a Goodwill store and there is this distinct odor of a Goodwill store. There really just is. And they do amazing things. So Goodwill, please don’t be mad at me for saying that, but it’s just it’s just part of it. Yeah. And they do volumes and volumes of things. So I don’t know that they have, they don’t have a way to necessarily, but.
Sandy Morrill (29:53.61)
No, yes, but… you know.
Yep.
Sandy Morrill (30:04.256)
No, we have toured there and, yep, we’ve had great experiences.
Lighthouse Therapy (30:15.224)
But yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about. And it is, it’s amazing that you guys have, you’ve tackled all of the big stuff. how do you handle, my next question. So now you’ve got revenue, right? So how are you managing that piece of it?
Sandy Morrill (30:27.756)
Yep, yes.
Sandy Morrill (30:31.982)
So unfortunately, which, you know, this is not going to be news to anybody in education right now. Budgets are tight. Special education budgets in particular are tight. And we do a lot of, a lot of what we do is cooking and things that require
Lighthouse Therapy (30:50.116)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (31:00.908)
expenditure of money, materials, we need materials. So what we’re doing with the revenue is we’re taking a portion and putting it back into the thrift shop until that’s pretty much satisfied. And then we are splitting it between the transition program and the life skills program so that we can maintain the purchase of materials
that will give right back to the program and lend themselves to the students’ objectives of being able to gain independence in the kitchen and whatever else they need. And even community outings, it will serve to fund our community outings.
Lighthouse Therapy (31:51.877)
Awesome, awesome. So one last question for you. If there was one thing, one thing, and it can’t be money, we know that, we know that, but if there’s one thing for this store or for your, this whole project and what you’re doing, this is a little bit of a, I ask this question a lot, but I’m kind of turning it a little bit because of the conversation that we’ve had, but if you could do one thing or have one thing not be a problem anymore when it goes to this project, what would that one thing be?
Sandy Morrill (31:55.405)
Yes.
Sandy Morrill (31:59.503)
Thank
Sandy Morrill (32:20.078)
Promotion, I think, and word of mouth. we’ve started visibility, maybe. I think it’s maybe visibility.
Lighthouse Therapy (32:21.461)
Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (32:28.281)
Yeah.
Yeah, you’re talking about marketing and advertising and yeah, that’s a big piece of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a whole department that does all of that. This show is a part of our marketing department. I totally get it. Yeah.
Sandy Morrill (32:32.974)
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. So, uh, it is.
Sandy Morrill (32:43.65)
Right. Exactly. So, you know, we started our little Instagram account and so we’re trying to, so that’s what I’m hoping to do through having these little promos and sales and, you know, we have, like many high schools do, they do have weekly bulletins and news and I’m trying to get us on there as much as possible and
Lighthouse Therapy (32:49.442)
Nice.
Lighthouse Therapy (33:12.046)
Mm-hmm.
Sandy Morrill (33:13.236)
just really kind of host, we were thinking about hosting a fashion show to really gain some visibility. So I think that’s, that’s basically, I couldn’t be happier with with what we’ve accomplished so far in the week that we’ve had, but I think going forward, it’s, it’s definitely going to be that promotional piece that that will keep drawing people in.
Lighthouse Therapy (33:39.173)
So let’s do this and it may work or it may not, but I want you to give me, because we break these up into bite-sized pieces. So I want this to be something that you can use as a first promo for your store. So I’m a new customer and you’re gonna advertise to me, here we’re gonna role play, right?
Sandy Morrill (33:44.693)
Okay.
Sandy Morrill (33:56.586)
Okay.
Sandy Morrill (34:03.733)
Okay.
Lighthouse Therapy (34:04.834)
So tell me, so, so give me that promo. What would it be? And I know this is going to be off the cuff, but maybe it will be golden. Who knows? but I want you to have the opportunity to, for us to take this and give this to you in a piece where it’s like, okay, here’s your first promo. Here’s your, here’s your first audio. Who’s your first video? Who knows? And, and let you give us that advertisement of your show. So I’m going to hush and let you do it.
Sandy Morrill (34:11.746)
Okay.
Sandy Morrill (34:19.373)
Okay.
Sandy Morrill (34:28.756)
Okay, so there is a hidden gem in the Shelton High School called the Thrifty Gale. And it is a place where you can get some great secondhand items that are in super condition and low, low prices. You can’t beat the prices and the, the, of course my dog is going to bark during my promo.
Lighthouse Therapy (34:56.292)
Yeah, during this, yeah. That’s okay. We can, let’s do this. Let’s have you start over and maybe he’ll stop. Okay, let’s start over. So, and that’s okay. We’ll cut that part out. So I’m gonna do 30, about 33, 40. I think the dog was barking and we’re gonna start over. Over, start over. Okay, start over. Okay. Got it? Oh, perfect. Okay.
Sandy Morrill (34:58.785)
Sandy Morrill (35:03.382)
Okay, okay, okay.
Okay.
Sandy Morrill (35:14.198)
Okay. Okay.
Okay, my son just walked in so it’s perfect. So he is going to make sure the dog does not bark. Okay. Yes. So is there is a hidden gem in the Shelton High School at Shelton, Connecticut called the thrifty Gale. It is run by students with special needs who would like to sell their products to you. It is secondhand clothing that can’t be beat the prices can’t be beat and
Lighthouse Therapy (35:24.932)
Perfect. Okay, ready? Go.
Sandy Morrill (35:47.459)
We welcome you to shop our wonderful selections. have prom dresses, have shoes, we have t-shirts, we have spirit wear, anything you could possibly need. You can find it at the Thrifty Gale and all of the proceeds go back to our special needs students and their endeavors to create their vocational and lifelong paths ahead of them.
We are so excited to share our merchandise with you.
Lighthouse Therapy (36:22.116)
Do you have a phone number or a website yet?
Sandy Morrill (36:24.33)
yes, we have a we have a phone number you can call 924-203-924-3000 and that’s to the high school or you can follow us on Instagram at shop the thrifty Gail.
Lighthouse Therapy (36:43.172)
Perfect. We will, we will have, I will have them edit it so that it’s one promo for you and we will get it out to you. So yeah. So Sandy, what? I’m just so excited. That gave me chills. That gives me chills because I know that this is something that, that is going to be amazing for you guys. God bless what you’re doing. The kids, they win when, when you do amazing things for kids at like this, they win. And it’s just, it’s just so beautiful to see.
Sandy Morrill (36:49.462)
Okay, fantastic.
Lighthouse Therapy (37:10.37)
So let’s give the school a plug because we want to give them a plug as well. So where do people go? Because I know people are going to have questions for you as well. So where do people go if they want to reach the school or they want to reach you and have to have questions about what you’ve done?
Sandy Morrill (37:13.088)
Okay.
Sandy Morrill (37:19.363)
Yes.
Sandy Morrill (37:25.07)
Okay, so because the program is really just housed at the school, I would reach me specifically. So it would be the Shelton Public Schools Transition Program. And my email is S as in Sam, moral, M-O-R-R-I-L-L, at SheltonPublicSchools.org.
I would be happy to answer any questions about anybody who would like to launch something like this for their own transition programs. I know in talking to people that, you know, run transition programs, we’re always looking for opportunities to get our kids really, really positive vocational opportunities and develop those skills that they need to be successful and fulfilled. So I’m happy to help.
Lighthouse Therapy (38:16.068)
Awesome.
Sandy Morrill (38:17.26)
Happy to give tours, happy to answer any questions, whatever people need.
Lighthouse Therapy (38:23.85)
Awesome. Well, Sandy, my goodness, it has been such a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for being on brighter together. Thank you for what you’re doing for these kids. You know, it doesn’t doesn’t affect me so much, but it does in my heart. It’s just so beautiful what you’re doing. So keep up the good work.
Sandy Morrill (38:38.712)
Thank you. Thank you for having me and thank you for doing what you’re doing. I every opportunity we can get our messages out and share ideas, the better off we all are and our students are.
Lighthouse Therapy (38:50.574)
Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse Therapy (38:55.576)
Yep, yep, absolutely. All right, thank you.
Sandy Morrill (38:58.999)
All right, thank you, Janet.
