Well Beyond Medicine: The Nemours Children's Health Podcast
Exploring people, programs and partnerships addressing whole child health.
Well Beyond Medicine: The Nemours Children's Health Podcast
Ep. 97: From Crew to Career: Transforming Lives with McDonald's Archways to Opportunity
McDonald’s is more than just the home of burgers, fries and shakes. It's a place where employees can learn valuable basic customer service skills and gain needed entry-level managerial experience. One in 8 Americans has worked at a McDonald's at some point in their lives, gaining these life-changing skills firsthand.
In addition to on-the-job experiences where McDonald's provides chances to learn these skills — a program called Archways to Opportunity® offers employees and their family members the chance to learn English, access tuition assistance for college, and earn high school diplomas through an online program!
Our podcast team recently traveled to a McDonald’s franchise in Bridgeville, Delaware, to learn about this program and hear the story of a teen mom and former McDonald's employee who now has a career at Nemours Children’s Health after earning her high school diploma through Archways to Opportunity.
Guests:
Erin Voss, Manager, Education Strategy & Analytics, McDonald's Corp.
Michael Meoli, President and Owner/Operator, The Meoli Companies
Quontisha Chisholm, Medical Administrative Assistant, Nemours Children’s Health, Delaware Valley
Carol Vassar, host/producer
Views expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the host or management.
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Announcer:
Welcome to Well Beyond Medicine, the world's top-ranked children's health podcast produced by Nemours Children's Health. Subscribe on any platform at nemourswellbeyond.org, or find us on YouTube.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Each week we're joined by innovators and experts from around the world, exploring anything and everything related to the 80% of child health impacts that occur outside the doctor's office. I'm your host, Carol Vassar, and now that you are here, let's go.
Music:
Let's go. Well beyond medicine.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
What do Macy Gray, Mark Hamill, Jeff Bezos, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Kamala Harris and I have in common? We are among the one in eight Americans who have worked here.
McDonald's Drive Thru Employee:
Welcome to McDonald's. Will you be using the mobile app today?
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
No, thank you. Can I just get a Diet Coke, please?
McDonald's: home of burgers, fries, and opportunities for decades. For McDonald's employees past and present, the chance to learn basic customer service skills and entry-level managerial skills has proved invaluable to the careers we've built, and today, there are even more chances for career advancements through the McDonald's Archways to Opportunity program. I traveled recently to a McDonald's in Bridgeville, Delaware, to hear directly from McDonald's owner-operator Mike Meoli and veteran McDonald's employee Quontisha Chisholm, now a Nemours associate, about how this workforce development program looks locally. More on that in a few minutes.
Joining me right now to provide an overview of Archways to Opportunity is Erin Voss. Erin is the manager of education strategy and analytics for the Archways to Opportunity program. I started our conversation by asking Erin how Archways to Opportunity came about and how it fits with McDonald's broader mission and values.
Erin Voss, McDonald's:
On any given day, 800,000 crew members are working within McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. Due to our sheer size and scale, this makes us a world-class job training and upskilling engine. We believe we have a tremendous responsibility in partnership with our U.S.-based owner-operators like Mike Meoli to ensure restaurant employees are set up for success no matter where their life and career takes them.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So investing in the education development of your employees, some would say it's taking away from your employee base, people might move on from McDonald's. What would you say to that question and the fact that education development is important for all of your employees?
Erin Voss, McDonald's:
So, it's twofold, right? Development and career opportunities are key to building a strong workforce. So, it's important to us as a company and our franchisees as local employers that we invest in employees’ long-term skills and education. So, this is an addition to the skills and development they're gaining for job readiness and skills within the restaurants, but we know they're applicable to the skills that they'll need for a lifetime of jobs outside the McDonald's system as well.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
From a national perspective, what’s been the impact, measurable impact that Archways Opportunity has had on say, employee retention within McDonald’s and job satisfaction?
Erin Voss, McDonald’s:
So, we conducted an ROI study with Accenture in 2020, which showed really powerful results. It showed that Archways participants are two times more likely to be promoted, and the participants are 20% less likely to leave in two years. So, what we see is for every year a non-participant spends with McDonald’s, an Archways participant spends 2.4 years. So, we’re seeing a great return on investment in terms of retention.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
It sounds like this is the kind of program that would serve as a model for other organizations. What advice would you give to other organizations, other companies who are looking to do something similar in terms of educational initiatives for associates, for employees?
Erin Voss, McDonald’s:
Yeah. My first piece of advice would be to understand the needs of your workforce. So, tapping into listening surveys or employee feedback to ensure you’re developing a comprehensive strategy for the employee’s needs and goals. The idea would be to design something that serves the population of your workforce and not just a quick fix of a one-size-fits-all solution to really address their development needs and their career aspirations outside the system.
In addition to that, by working together across companies, industries and sectors, we can harness collective strengths and influences. There’s so much that we can do to advance economic and social conditions of our communities. Invest in workforce development in meaningful ways, help change the conversation from low wage or dead-end jobs to those that help develop foundational skills that employees can take with them anywhere. This also helps break down barriers and support a more equitable workforce.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
I’m curious; this is not just something that you decided one day you were going to open the doors to and say, here’s Archways to Opportunity. How did this come about? How long did it take in the planning phase before you finally launched it, and when did you launch it
Erin Voss, McDonald’s:
So the planning phase, going with kind of piloting and testing. We did pilot and test with our McOpCo, our corporate restaurants with some of our key initiatives before launching the program officially in 2015. So, we launched what is our four pillars of the program that help our restaurant employees, and we did this at that design of meeting them at their point of need
So, we offer a program that helps folks learn English language skills through our English under the Arches program. We offer getting a high school diploma through our partnership with Career Online High School, which is an accredited online high school district that’s designed specifically for working age adults. That was key in the decision making and kind of planning to what the offerings would be. We also offer the completion of college degrees with financial support of tuition assistance, and lastly, access to academic and career advising services.
So truly trying to model and practice what we preach of meeting each employee at their point of need. We also created a career navigation app that allows restaurant employees to see how the skills they’re learning at a McDonald’s restaurant translate into career pathways within our system, but also in other industries like healthcare, and IT, and finance.
In addition to all of those programs, we also offer our college degree-seeking employees the ability to transfer select training courses taken at Hamburger University for credit. So, this credit pathways right into our partner colleges, which are Colorado Technical Institute, Western Governor’s University, and Excelsior. What this does for the employees is it reduces time and investment required to complete their college degree.
So, for example, one of our GMs, our general managers, could potentially receive up to 20 hours of credit for on-the-job training, which could go towards their bachelor’s program. So, we’ve done piloting within each of those pillars in some very strong partnerships with folks like Career Online High School and Colorado Technical Institute to ensure that we’re meeting the employees and giving them an experience to find the right educational path to their career goals.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
It sounds like you’re coming up on a 10-year anniversary. What’s been the uptake amongst your employees? How many employees have actually gone through these various programs, participated in Archways to Opportunity over the last 9.5 Years or so?
Erin Voss, McDonald’s:
Yeah, we’re very excited to be coming up on 10 years, 10-year anniversary. I’m happy to report that since inception, Archways has provided access to education for more than 82,500 restaurant employees, and over $185 million has been awarded in tuition assistance. Recent celebration that we’ve got to take part in with the career online high school, Quontisha being one of 2000 career online high school graduates so far through the program, so it’s pretty exciting.
In many ways, we see ourselves as a pipeline employer. For example, given the critical skills shortages in industries like tech, healthcare and skilled trades, we know we have an opportunity to introduce those career paths to restaurant employees, and to provide them access to the education required to qualify for those roles.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Erin Voss is the manager of education strategy and analytics for the McDonald’s Archways to Opportunity Program. So how does Archways to opportunity work in practice locally? Mike Meoli is the owner operator of 25 McDonald’s restaurants in Delaware and along Maryland’s Eastern Shore, including the one I visited in Bridgeville, Delaware. He not only introduced me to Quontisha Chisholm, a successful Archways to opportunity participant, but gave me the chance to see how the operation of a McDonald’s has changed since this one-time McDonald’s employee last wore the uniform nearly 40 years ago.
Mike Meoli, McDonald’s owner/operator:
We are coming through here now. This restaurant is, actually we’re getting ready to do a remodel in this restaurant, so very much as the delivery has taken off. So, businesses like delivery, our digital space, so it requires us to kind of redo this kind of front counter area. So major construction’s going to happen here in a couple of months.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
I noticed you only have two cashiers up front. I remember back in the day when I worked at a McDonald’s, it was five or six.
Mike Meoli, McDonald’s owner/operator:
Yeah, those days are very different. The digital space has changed everything. And when this restaurant is redone, I think it’s actually this one will still have two. Many of them now actually have one. So, as we’re going to, whether it’s a kiosk, whether it’s delivery, certainly mobile order pay on your phones, those channels to be able to order now are completely different. And it’s important to note, it’s not that there’s less people working in the restaurants, they’re actually, they’re shifting because so much more throughput is needed in the kitchen areas and preparing for delivery. So we’re taking them from the front counter and kind of moving them to the kitchen.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Let’s move to the kitchen. I’d love to see what’s going on in there, and if anything looks familiar from my days.
Mike Meoli, McDonald’s owner/operator:
Yeah, it does. It’s probably, some of it’s different. Kind of the way we do things might be a little bit different from many years ago, but it’s still hamburgers, French fries, and Cokes and shakes, and all the things that you’ve come to grow up with at McDonald’s. Yeah.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Now I mentioned that I worked at McDonald’s, it was many decades ago. You’ve been in the business your entire life.
Mike Meoli, McDonald’s owner/operator:
I have.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
And about one in eight of us. Is it true that one in eight of us are McDonald’s former employees or current?
Mike Meoli, McDonald’s owner/operator:
That is true. How they’ve come up with that calculation, I’m not quite sure, but apparently one in eight Americans have worked in a McDonald’s in some part of their lives.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
What kinds of skills do you think people learn here that they either take with them, either up the corporate ladder, because I’ve met a few people here who have been here 26+ years, 40 plus years, or with them to their careers?
Mike Meoli, McDonald’s owner/operator:
Well, certainly first and foremost, people skills. People development skills, working with obviously a large amount of customers, just being able to get to work on time, being responsible, working with others. Certainly, the management development. I mean most, I would say most people come to McDonald’s with the intention of it being a part-time job, and many, many, many stay for a career. My average tenure of people in my organization, I have almost 1500 employees. The average is 9.86 years of people that stay with me.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
That’s amazing.
Mike Meoli, McDonald’s owner/operator:
Which is amazing. I think people have this conception or perception about the quick service industry that it is just kind of either a dead-end job, or just this constant turnover. That’s the beautiful sound of a McFrappe being mixed. So, you got that right in the middle of that, but no, but we’re very proud of the fact that many of these people, many of the people right here in this organization, in this restaurant that we’re in have been here for years, years and years.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
We’re going to meet one of the one in eight that has been one of your employees. She spent I think almost 10 years with you, and she’s now with Nemours.
Mike Meoli, McDonald’s owner/operator:
Wonderful. She’s wonderful. She has an amazing story, and I’m just proud as I can be that somehow McDonald’s was a part of it.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Quontisha, tell me about you and who you are, and how you're associated with all of this.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
All right. I'm Quontisha Chisholm. I was a former employee of McDonald's in Millsboro, and then Milford where I became a manager, and now I am a medical assistant at Nemours in Milford
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Take us back to when you were a new mom, you were 15 years old. What was that period of time for you and your son
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
For me, it was a life-changing decision, like a life-making decision because I had to support my son. I didn't want the lady that raised me to have to take on that burden, because she took me in when I was six months old.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So, you were 15, you had a son. Did you leave high school at that point?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes, I did.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Tell me how you felt during that time period. I mean, I can't imagine myself at 15 with a new baby.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Life was a blur, because at 15 you don't even know where your life is going, and now you have to decide what decisions you're going to make for your son. Is this decision that I make going to be right? Because now the spotlight's on you, because you determine what's going to happen in his life
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
What were you determined to do at that point? It sounds like you were a very determined young woman, and you wanted to support him.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
I wanted to get out there and work. It's not that I wanted to work, but I had no choice because he didn't ask to be here, and I wasn't going to put that on my mom that was in her seventies. That was unfair to everyone with the decisions that I decided to make in my life.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
What was it like at age 15 going on a job hunt?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
It was funny because of course you don't have a car at 15, but luckily there's DART, and back then DART was $1, so I take $2 to get there and get back home. And I used to take my son in his car seat in the stroller to go on job hunting.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So, DART is local transportation, public transportation.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes ma'am.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So you would take him on the bus looking for jobs. At that point, was it going door to door and filling out applications with a baby in tow, or were you doing it online?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
I was going to Rehoboth. There was no online applications then, you were going in the store.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
And Rehoboth is-
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
In Delaware.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
In Delaware.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes ma'am.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So how far was that from where you were living?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
I lived in Ellendale, Delaward, so I want to say about 40 minutes with traffic in the summertime.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
That's one way.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Oh, my goodness. With a baby in tow, that is determination for sure. You landed a job at a McDonald's?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes, I did.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Tell us about how you felt when you got that job, what it entailed and where you moved from that point.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Okay, so I lived in Millsboro, DE, and I was about 18 years old, and my husband at the time told me to put in an application. Now mind you, I didn't know anything about McDonald's, but besides that, I eat there a lot, so I would love to go and see what it was about. And at the time, this program wasn't offered for Archways, the Opportunities, but I stayed with McDonald's for about six to seven years in Millsboro before life changes, and I moved back to Ellendale.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
What kind of skills in that six-to-seven-year period do you think you developed professionally?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
You definitely get customer service, because you deal with a lot of attitudes day in and day out, and I was the opener at McDonald's in Millsboro. So when they come in you have your regulars, like the older people that come in and get their coffees every day, and you start to learn, you start to learn the customers that come in.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
You also, it seems gained supervisory skills. Those are important. Talk about that.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
So, at McDonald's in Milford, I became a manager. I just applied online, and I came in for an interview with Paul down in Milford. I did a lot of that at Purdue as well with the whole management skills. So, I was like, oh, let's see if I can go back to McDonald's. When I got in, customer service. Now I'm over top of people, so a lot of younger children, like teenagers. So, you do pick up a lot of skills there, because you can't talk to children the same way that you talk to adults. You have to break it down to their level so that they understand.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Now you worked at McDonald's, you went to Perdue, which is what?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
That's a chicken plant.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
It's a chicken plant.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So, you worked there for a little while?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
About three years.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Again, developed those supervisory and leadership skills, then came back to McDonald's in a management role.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes ma'am.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
How long total did you work at McDonald's?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
I want to say the first time was six years. Milford would've been about three years.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
It sounds like your career was developing quite nicely, but there was a barrier there, which was-
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
No high school diploma.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
No high school diploma. McDonald's was there to help. You mentioned it earlier, Archways to Opportunity. Mike, I'm going to turn to you. Archway to Opportunity. What is that?
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
It is a program that McDonald's corporation brought to the operators, brought to all of us, and so the owner-operators across the country and McDonald's share in the cost. And Archways opportunity provides a number of things. First, as Quontisha took advantage of, the opportunity to get a high school diploma. Not a GED, an actual diploma.
So if you work in the restaurant for at least 90 days, you're eligible to go into that program. The program can last up to 18 months online to be able to actually get a complete high school diploma. It offers opportunities for scholarship reimbursement, also the opportunity to get a college degree. Most notable, we've had a number of folks recently graduate from Colorado Technical University. Again, an online opportunity to get a degree and certainly, and they also give you the opportunity at graduation to actually go out to CTU and actually participate in the graduation ceremony.
And I just recently at another restaurant, just had a graduate, and surprised her with plane fare and a hotel to send her out there, and she was just over the moon, because it wasn't something that she was going to be able to do otherwise. And it's a great program, and it works because it's a win-win for everyone.
Sometimes someone will ask me, "It's like, Mike, you're participating in a program that's actually allowing people to leave you. You're investing in people who are going to leave." I am fine with that, because it's a win-win while we're together. So even if it takes two or three years, that's great. I have those people with me for two or three years helping me out in the McDonald's part of their journey. But if it enables them in any way to do something that they want to do that they've always wanted to do in life, I couldn't be happier to be able to do that for people. And it's just a great thing that McDonald's offer, and people need to know about it. You talk about brand, building the brand, Archways is a great, great initiative to help build, brand McDonald's.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
And it's certainly something that the community needs, your community needs, and it's about creating that job pipeline. People are coming through McDonald's, you're creating the job pipeline not only for your own employees who may stay with you and work into the management level, but also to people like Quontisha who is now with Nemours.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Talk about your experience with Archways to Opportunity. This gave you not a GED, but a high school degree, and that was without cost to her, wasn't it?
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
Correct.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Talk about your experience.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Okay. So, when I first came to my manager at the time and asked about how does the program work, he said it was a high school diploma, and I just had to send in my information and somebody would contact me, I think from the McDonald's headquarters to let me know the next steps. And then they told me that I needed to pick what next step I wanted to do, and I picked the CDA. So, I have a Child Development Associate certificate, and that's to deal with in daycare with children. And I know that my two passions in life were medical and for children so I'm like, okay, let's see where it takes me.
At first, I thought when I got on that it was going to be just a fly by high school diploma. I'm like, it's online. How difficult can it be? Boy, was I surprised that it's... I was like, oh, it's like, oh, real math, it's going to be next level. Because I did stop a couple of times, I was so discouraged. I've forgotten everything. Because just think, from 15 to in your 30s, and then you're just going back. You have to re-trigger your brain to get into that mindset to now I'm working, I'm a wife, I have children, and now I'm trying to take up this high school diploma that, now mind you I still work, and then I have to come home, be a wife, and do my schoolwork at the same time too.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
How long did it take you?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
I want to say about two years.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
But you got there.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
I definitely did. I kept pushing. Yes, I did.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Mike, talk about the relationship you have with Quontisha. I know that you two have worked together, she's now with Nemours, but you really encouraged her, almost mentored her in her journey, didn't you? You and your team?
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
Well, I tell you, she mentioned Stephanie, the general manager at the Millsboro store at the time, and Stephanie is an amazing woman, just a wonderful human character, and she cares about people and people's situations. And so she gave Quontisha the opportunity, and she did a great job. She worked in this restaurant for, I think it was like 5+ years, 6 years? It was a while that she was in the Millsboro coming up and did a great job there, just steady. Then she left for a time to work at Perdue. She came back to me, a McDonald's restaurant one that at the time I did not own.
I didn't own the Milford, Delaware McDonald's restaurant when she came back. And when I purchased it in 2020, she was there. I'm like, here, I'm back. Not you're back. I'm the one that, here I am again. And so we were reacquainted in that situation, which was fantastic. And then of course when we were over at Nemours for something completely different, I see Quontisha in the lobby at a presentation that we were making, and she came up and I just couldn't be more proud that somehow, in some way, large or small, that either I, or my company, or McDonald's was involved in this great story of her being able to achieve her goals in life. Despite some things that maybe, just a path that maybe it wouldn't exactly the way you drew it up, but it is been great. Couldn't be happier for her.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
I want to get to why you were at Nemours that day. You have a special relationship with Nemours, don't you?
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
So we made a donation to Nemours to construct an audiology department. The connection really was kind of a grateful patient kind of connection where down here in the southern part of Delaware, before the Nemours in Milford was built, all of us down here in the southern part for children's issues had to go to the Nemours up in Wilmington, Delaware.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Which is about two hours from here.
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
It's a little bit less than that, but it's all of an hour and a half. And multiple trips up and down the state. And our daughter had some ear issues where she had some of the tubes put in. So multiple visits, the surgery that happened up there, and the experience was wonderful. It took care of all of her problems; it was just such a great experience that we had.
And so down here in Sussex County, we wanted to be part of whatever we could do to help as McDonald's, as a brand, certainly as personal connection. And so we made a donation to the audiology department. And while we were there on site doing the check presentation and getting the whole tour of what they had built, we're standing in the lobby and Quontisha comes up to me, "Mr. Mike." So, that's the story.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So, you got your high school degree through Archways to Opportunity. Did you go on beyond that, or how did you end up in Nemours, I guess is my question?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Okay, so funny story is that I was doing childcare, and then I was just looking at the guide, the Sussex County guide, and then it said, hey, we have funds if you want to go back to school at Dell Tech. And then it was like for the medical field is needed. We are at a shortage, because it was during COVID time, of course. So, I was like, okay. I thought it was just a joke, but I did contact the leader of the workforce development program, and she called me, and she was like, "Okay, you live in Dover. We don't have that program offered in Dover right now, but if you're able to come to Georgetown, then we'll be able to get you started."
Still kind of hesitant because I'm like, nobody's just giving out funds for free, what's the catch? The catch was only that you had to get a job within six months in the medical field, which was fine, or so I thought. So I took the placement test, because you have to at least place a certain level to be able to be a medical assistant. Classes started, I want to say around in January, February at Dell Tech, and the program was a rapid program, which is really intense because, think trying to finish something in four months, and you still have to take national certification. It's not like just you're getting your certification through DelTech. I'm nationally certified.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Right.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
It was a lot.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Talk about the difference that both Archways to Opportunity and the opportunity at DelTech have made in your life right now.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
It's made a big change. My kids, they look up, they're like, "Mom, I'm so proud of you that you went back." And because of me going back, and getting my high school diploma, and getting my, I'm a clinically certified medical administrative assistant, so I have two different certifications. So I can either work front of the house, as they call it, registration, or I can work in the back with patients. My son actually works at Mike's McDonald's on Route 8-
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
This is the one you had at 15.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
Yes.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Oh, my goodness.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
He works in Dover, and he does nursing at Delaware State.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So he's following in mom's footsteps in many, many ways.
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
Which is great. And so, he's at McDonald's with that job, he's saving money, going into the nursing field. Again, it kind of repeats itself, and it's such a good story.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Archways to Opportunity does the high school degree program, and the college tuition program that you talked about. There's one other aspect of that which is English language learning. Can you tell us more about that, Mike?
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
Yeah, I forgot that one. Yeah, English Under the Arches. So, there's the opportunity specifically for actually both ways for Spanish-speaking crew and managers to learn English. And it's primarily English around being able to communicate inside a McDonald's restaurant. Another thing, and we've graduated a number of folks again, online, at their pace they can do this, and it's been great. McDonald's also through that same program, offers a Spanish Under the Arches classes. Those of us who want to learn Spanish to be able to better communicate with our Spanish-speaking crew and managers, we also can take that same class.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So Mike, give me the stats about Archways to Opportunity.
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
So, here's what we have currently in my organization. So right now, we have two employees who are working on their master’s at CTU Online. Right now, 30 working on their associates or bachelor’s at CTU. We have four working on their high school diploma career online. We have four employees who have graduated from the English under the Arches class here recently. And we've had five that are going to be enrolled in the next class that starts. We've had so far 20 people have applied for other Archways tuition assistance and book assistance through the program.
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
And the Archways, the Opportunities if you work there, it also can help your immediate family too, because they can also do school as well.
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
Absolutely. Anybody who's an employee, members of their immediate family can also be part of, have the opportunity to get in on these same opportunities through Archways.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
So, you're making a tremendous impact. How does it affect the community at large, having a program like this and the other community outreach that McDonald's does?
Mike Meoli, McDonald's owner/operator:
Well, I think in anything where people feel that there is hopefulness to move forward in life, an opportunity to do what I want to do and to achieve in life, or an opportunity to kind of overcome something in your life, how is that not good for any community? And this is what McDonald's is creating out there. The opportunity for people to do something that they maybe otherwise didn't think was possible. And it's right here at McDonald's.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Quontisha is a great example of that. You're nodding your head. What are your thoughts on that?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
I'm just saying I agree with it because I didn't go to McDonald's for a high school diploma. I didn't even know anything about the program. I just happened to be on the website, and it popped up like, Archway the Opportunities. I'm like, let's see what this is really about. But I just know that I wanted better for my life and for my children's life. And without that I said, you can't even mop a floor without even... A lot of jobs want you to have a high school diploma for a lot of things, and it's a big hindrance, like it's a stop.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
If you were to go back and talk to your 15-year-old self, she's sitting right across from you with this table here in Bridgeville, what would you say to her?
Quontisha Chisholm, Nemours Children's Health:
I would tell her keep pushing. When one door closes, another opportunity opens. You may not see the bigger goal, you may not see the bigger picture, but it's there. You just have to reach for it. You just have to go get it.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
Quontisha Chisholm is a clinical medical assistant for Nemours Children's Health. Mike Meoli is the owner-operator of 25 McDonald's restaurants in Delaware and Maryland.
Music:
Well beyond medicine.
Carol Vassar, host/producer:
While visiting the McDonald's Bridgeville location, Mike surprised Quontisha by presenting her with the coveted McDonald's in-the-crew varsity jacket in recognition of her achievements. See photos from that ceremony on our website, NemoursWellBeyond.org.
Thank you to Erin Voss, Mike Meoli, and the crew at the Bridgeville McDonald's for hosting our visit and talking with us about Archways to Opportunity. Thanks also to Quontisha Chisholm for sharing her story, which is far from over. She plans to continue in a career in medicine by working toward becoming an EMT. Now I have a question for you. Who would you like to hear from, and what topics would you like us to dive into next?
Leave a voicemail on our website, NemoursWellBeyond.org, or email us, producer@NemoursWellBeyond.org. Kudos as always, to our production team this week, which includes Cheryl Munn, Susan Masucci, Lauren Teta, Steve Savino, and Justin Windheim. I'm Carol Vassar. Until next time, remember, we can change children's health for good, well beyond medicine.
Music:
Let's go. Well beyond medicine.
