Giulietta’s Journey to Employment: From Grocery Shopper to Valued Team Member at Loblaws

Giulietta is thriving as a valued member of the PC Express (PCX) department at Loblaws, where she helps fulfill online orders for customers. She works two hours a day on Mondays and Fridays, a schedule that allows her to combine her passion for food with meaningful work while developing independence and life skills.

Journey to Employment

Benji and Giulietta have long been familiar faces at Loblaws in North York, first as customers. Their early visits provided opportunities to practice essential life skills, such as grocery shopping, identifying items, and matching words to food products, foundational skills that would later support Giulietta’s workplace success.

Current Role in PC Express

Since September 2023, Giulietta has been part of the PCX team. She works alongside her support worker, ensuring guidance and assistance are always available as she practices new skills. Using a smartphone scanner, she navigates the store efficiently, guided by blinking labels on products to find items accurately. Giulietta continues to build confidence and develop new skills.

Personal Shopper: Fulfilling a Dream

If we were to imagine the perfect job for Giulietta, this position would be it, perfectly combining her love of food with meaningful employment. Being part of the Loblaws team is not only professionally rewarding for Giulietta but also personally fulfilling. She takes pride in her accomplishments, and continues to demonstrate that with the right support, she can thrive.

Current Loblaws Goals:

When Giulietta arrives at work, her first responsibility is to get ready for her shift. She starts by locating and preparing her cart with green baskets. As part of her morning routine, she greets her colleagues, practicing important social skills by saying “Hello” or “Good morning.” The final step in her setup is collecting stickers and signing into the phone scanner, with support from her 1:1 worker as needed.

A key aspect of Giulietta's role involves developing store navigation skills, with the consistent support of her support worker. She learns to look up and identify aisle numbers, matching them to the locations needed for each order. Since Giulietta has been coming to this specific Loblaws location for years, she is familiar with the store's layout. When locating items, Giulietta uses the phone scanner as a guide, with her support worker providing guidance as needed, helping her read and understand which items are required for each order.

Working with the scanner requires several specific skills that Giulietta continues to develop.

1. She learns to locate flashing lights, and barcodes on products, which can appear on different shelves depending on the item.

2. Proper scanning technique involves holding the device correctly and ensuring accurate reads of each barcode (assistance from support worker is provided)

3. Giulietta learns to recognize and respond appropriately to the flashing light to locate items.

As Giulietta continues in her position, she works toward increasing independence in all aspects of her role. This includes more efficient store navigation and faster item location. The welcoming and supportive environment at Loblaws helps Giulietta feel fully integrated as a member of the team.

Giulietta’s role in the PCX department at Loblaws has also opened up wonderful opportunities to build practical skills. To support her success, we practice identifying barcodes at home using different household products, helping her become more confident and efficient during her shifts. By turning this into a fun matching and scanning activity, she strengthens her independence and accuracy while connecting her learning directly to real tasks she performs at work.