For many Kansas City workers, Friday is all about TGIF. But there's another side - one where people want to work, but have difficulty finding jobs.
"Each student is assigned one to two events and they compete in those events," explained Ryan Mason, 20.
Mason is a super senior at Lee's Summit High School and on this day he worked the Job Olympics. At the event, mentally and physically disabled students compete to show off the skills they've learned over the course of the school year.
"There's three medals -- a gold, a silver and a bronze - just like in the Olympics. The highest will get the gold, the next silver and bronze," he said.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 17.5 percent of people with disabilities have jobs, compared to 65 percent without disabilities.
"These students do have skills that can be an asset to others," explained Lee's Summit School District transition teacher Christina Taylor. "They are important members of our community and should be fully embraced as such. They belong in the community and not sitting at home lonely."
Taylor helps run the district's Gaining Real Life Experience and Training, or GREAT, program. It is here that students with disabilities spend several years learning job skills and how to lead independent lives. The GREAT program ended up winning the event's traveling trophy.
"[The Job Olympics] lets them practice those skills," she explained. "The businesses that come to judge, they can learn that these students have these valuable skills and be an asset to their company. Hopefully more get hired."
And while on this day the young people are competing for a medal, what they really hope to get out of it is a job, so that when the weekend nears, they too can say TGIF.
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Terra Hall can be reached at terra.hall@kshb.com.
