New Hope Honors Growth Through Opportunity Cadets

Posted on 09/05/2024

On Monday, August 26, the first cadets of New Hope's Growth Through Opportunity (GTO) program graduated and were honored at the New Hope City Council meeting.

The two cadets, Tate Johnson and Ismail Diriye, spent three months gaining valuable career experience from various departments throughout the City. The program is a collaboration between the City of New Hope and Empower Inclusion. GTO is designed for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to gain work experience with local city government and police departments.

Council Member John Elder commended the City staff for embracing the program, saying, “This program came forward when other cities haven’t embraced it due to staffing, due to time constraints, due to whatever, and the directors here and Officer Kallio grabbed onto this and said, ‘we will make this happen.’”

In June, Tate and Ismail started working at the City twice weekly along with their job coach, Paul Rapp. They spent time within multiple City departments, including the police department, West Metro Fire-Rescue District, parks and recreation, public works, and communications. The cadets worked at City facilities, participated in police ride-alongs, held interviews with City staff, helped with City events and spent time at the public works facility.

Johnson stated, “Getting to explore all the different departments in the City, especially the stuff you usually don’t know about,” was the best part of the program. “I think having this program is good and having information about the city available is important.”