Summer Mareski, sophomore, has benefitted from PAWS Productions. This new company is a great learning experience for BV West’s Special Ed students like Mareski.

PAWS (Positively Awesome West Students) Productions is a company formed by  special education students and department that works to create spirit gifts, locker decorations, banners, and more, which can be purchased through the company’s website: http://hcdill.wix.com/paws.

In addition to creating products for its customers, PAWS Productions exists to provide its staff with many important life skills.

“We wanted our students to have an opportunity to obtain vocational skills and they can get that by going out to the C-Dot program, but we wanted to start training them earlier than junior and senior years,” said teacher Heather Dill.

PAWS Productions provides these students with the means to become prepared for the future, and serves as an introduction to the occupational setting.

“Everybody’s got a job, and they rotate those jobs so they’re practicing following directions and they’re seeing a product from beginning to end with quality so that they can transfer that into the workplace,” said teacher Patricia Knox.

PAWS Productions is also getting involved in the spread the word to stop the word campaign

“We would like to spread awareness about how much the word retarded hurts people, so we have a campaign going. We will be presenting things out to the school March 2, and we will be making banners and buttons and things like that.” said Dill

PAWS Productions has worked to become self-sustainable in order to continue to provide these skills to the staff.

“The products are all made out of recycled paper, and we use that paper so they can put that profit back into their business and keep it going.” said Knox.

The company is also trying to market to the student body in order to cater to a wider audience.

“We would really like to see students start ordering from us,” said Dill. “We have a good parent following and we would just like to have more awareness out there with the student body because our students enjoy making things for their peers.”

PAWS Productions has been featured on Jagged Edge, has created brochures, and has used social media to try and increase sales. Business for the company is hit or miss depending on the time of year.

Keeping busy all the time is a challenge because you hit these busy times like homecoming,” said Knox. “After homecoming there was nothing to do and then knowing that you can build up your product while you’re doing that so that when the next rush hits you’ve got stuff in stock.”

PAWS Productions takes pride in their work, even while business is slow.

“It’s been very fun to see the students interact with the entire school, and to see students who aren’t always recognized, get recognized by receiving some of our products.” said Dill.

Taking the PAWS Production class has been a positive experience for the staff, and has displayed to them how their effort can pay off.

“When they see the stuff that we made for them they seem happy,” Mareski said.