INDIANAPOLIS — A new food truck in Indianapolis — Cheese and Thank You — is the first of it's kind, as it's driving in employment opportunities for adults with disabilities.
New Hope of Indiana unveiled the truck after weeks of planning.
"It's fantastic. I love those guys," Richie Olopade, a new employee, said. 'They make me feel so happy."
Olopade is one of the three new employees, and he believes his new job will offer other employers some new food for thought when it comes to hiring Hoosiers like him.
"It will prove to the whole world that people with disability can work as well as people without disability," Olopade said.
Olopade and his other co-workers are learning about the foodservice industry, sales, marketing, customer service, and business practices.
"What we're really trying to tackle is to get the unemployment levels of adults with disabilities down," Tim Dunkel, a food truck specialist, said. "It's more than double for unemployment for typical adults."
Cheese and Thank You hopes to help improve those figures through its efforts and its business model, which is the first of its kind in the Midwest.
"I was driving into work today like ope, 'here's the day we've been working for — for over a month for — and really a lot of sweat and a lot of hard work has gone into just this day,'" Dunkel said. "And you know, every day we're out we're going to put in the hard work and try to bring in as good as food as we can."
The truck is stationary every Monday outside of New Hope of Indiana (8450 North Payne Road) and other days it's traveling around the city.
