BANGOR, Maine — Cameron Steltzer, 23, of Hampden had applied for jobs at several local businesses, but the autistic man was always passed over.
“I had a few [job interviews] where a more experienced guy walked in and took it,” Steltzer said recently.
A year ago he told his parents that all he wanted for Christmas was a job.
Soon after, he applied at the Bangor Goodwill store.
Steltzer landed a sales associate job, “because they needed someone tall — it seems,” he said.
Store manager Shirley Hall said Goodwill is a place that employs people with disabilities and others who experience barriers to finding independent work.
“That is one of our claims to fame,” the store manager said. “It’s such an added value to our store.”
Each Goodwill applicant starts with an assessment of abilities, and the job is tailored to suit the strengths of the employee, Hall said.
“I want to strengthen their weaknesses but let them do what they want to do,” the store manager said. “It’s finding out what [they] can do and what I need.”
Goodwill Industries of Northern New England offers several programs designed to assist people with economic and social independence, and operates 18 thrift stores in Maine that resell donated clothing, household goods and shoes.
“There are [people with] a lot of different barriers here,” Hall said later, listing color blindness, the inability to read and autism as challenges some of her approximately 60 employees face.
Autism is a bioneurological developmental disability that affects normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction, communication skills and cognitive function, according to the National Autism Association. Steltzer has not let it hold him back. He is a graduate of Hampden Academy and he also has a driver’s license.
The benefits of having a job are more than just bringing home a paycheck, said Cameron’s mom, Leah Steltzer.
“When you’ve got to work, you go out and you go,” she said. “A lot of good things happen when you go to work. He’s more independent and has his own money.”
Cameron Steltzer lives at home and puts most of his earnings into a savings account, but spends some of it on healthy foods.
“I figure it will pay off over time,” he said.
His work is paying off for the store, according to his boss.
“Cam is such a good employee,” Hall said. “He’s such an independent worker. He usually tells me what he wants to do. You don’t have to remind him, he just does it. He likes to help customers.”
Steltzer’s first job was scanning and sorting books, but it was difficult for him so now he spends his time pulling items off the shelves or racks that are dated and putting out newly received items to give customers a rotating selection.
“I’ve made some friends, yes. The workers are all nice and friendly,” he said in the lunchroom at the store.
The best part of his job is finding “oddities.”
“I’ve found women’s bras in men’s shirts and batteries in boots and kids’ shirts in men’s pants,” the Hampden man said. “I wonder what I am going to find next in oddities.”
It’s the kind of active job he enjoys.
“I’d fall asleep if I was stuck at a desk too long,” he said.
Now that he has mastered doing pulls and putting out merchandise, Steltzer is thinking about a new challenge at the store: to “take a look at cashiering.”
That is a huge step, his mother said.
“It just changed everything for the better,” she said.