Recently, volunteers from The Arc of the Central Chesapeake Region began partnering with Midshore Meals til Monday at the food-give away events held at the Empowerment Center in downtown Cambridge. The mission of The Arc is to promote respect, create opportunities, facilitate services and advocate for equal rights for all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Each month The Arc volunteers pack and distribute bags of canned goods, produce, baked goods and frozen meat to Dorchester County families who stop by to participate in the food-give away program. In addition, the volunteers also pack bags of weekend non-perishable foods for Dorchester students at the MtM facility at the Salvation Army Store in Cambridge. On one recent packing day volunteers packed almost 900 bags of weekend food for children. There are three or four small teams of nine The Arc volunteers who participate in the work opportunity and they are accompanied and supervised by several The Arc staff members. Val Prochaska is one of the direct support professionals (DSP) who supervises The Arc volunteers who help out with MtM’s distribution. Val described working with MtM as a win-win situation — where the adults with disabilities receive job training in a real world work setting while simultaneously helping MtM fulfill their mission. He describes his teams as hard working and motivated individuals who are learning how to take more initiative in the job setting. Val hopes The Arc volunteers will be able to increase the number of days each month they volunteer for MtM and expresses his gratitude to Leslie Bishop, MtM Director for the opportunity. The Arc volunteers focus on gaining mastery of the tasks at hand while improving their ability to follow multi-step instructions and work independently and with others to accomplish a job.