Extra Innings
by: Gail Lang

The developmentally disabled students and adults in our community are now receiving an opportunity to become productive and self-reliant members of the community work force. These valuable people are being trained and employed in a non-profit new and used sports equipment store.

Leanne and Jerry Junkins are teachers by trade. Jerry still teaches in the Berkley County school system while Leanne, a vocational counselor, has taken her talents to a new level. She had worked previously through the Dorchester County Career School and helped hundreds of young people find employment. Since then she's began a new form of work involving training and transitional training for developmentally disabled and handicapped youth and adults in our community. In 1994, she and her husband, Jerry, decided to open their own business. This was made possible with a three-year, $152,000 cumulative grant from the South Carolina Department of Disabilities, administered through the Office of the Governor.

They opened a second-hand sporting good store for two reasons. It was something the community needed, but it also provides availability of tasks that are suitable for training disabled employees. This business is an all-encompassing training program as well as a job oppurtunity for the disabled, working simultaneously to develop skills that will open up new horizons for the disabled.

Extra Innings is an innovative new and used sports equipment store in our community run entirely, with the exception of supervisors, by the mentally and physically disabled. Our community presently has many disadvantaged people remaining at home being without an opportunity to realise their full potential. Extra Innings works to involve the disabled individuals in the community, and does on-site training in the store itself. Through this program these disabled people will be trained to attain skills with reagrd to work ethics for future jobs, effective interaction with others in the community, successful daily living habits, and most importantly an enhancement to their self-esteem because they are productive and important to Summerville.

Once these individuals reach the point where they can move on, the supervisors work closely with each person to enable an easy transition into the permanent work force. Personally offering a choice to each individual, the supervisors fully strive to try to place them into employment that is fully in accord with the interests and skills shown forth. All too often the disabled are not given choices, but are just placed into employment without their own feedback, in hopes that they will succeed. Extra Innings also go a step further by accompanying the now-trained new employee to their new career and by gradually assisting them into self-reliance and personal success. This final step is the mark of true dedication, and is profitable for all concerned.

Disabled individuals have proved themselves as worthy interworkers in our community through the skills they have learned at Extra Innings. Each year there is a Mayor's Luncheon in honor of their efforts and achievements. They want to be valuable and treasured assets to us instead of nameless and hidden liabilities. This unique program gives them the opportunity to do just that.

Leanne Junkins is the founder of this program and would welcome the opportunity to help you understand how it works so that perhaps a similar program can be established in your area. For more information you can contact Leanne directly at Extra Innings - 803-851-9245 - 703 N. Main Street, Summerville, SC. Pictured below are a few of the many people that have passed through Extra Innings on their way to a new future.

Previous / Next