In 2022, Nantucket resident Joshua Malitsky was trying to find a job for his son, Asher. Asher, who has autism, had just graduated from a post-high school program at the Riverview School, a Cape Cod-based educational institution for students with complex language, learning, and cognitive challenges.

After seeing an online post from town manager Libby Gibson about the problematic trash situation on the island, Malitsky proposed a solution that would help them both. He wrote Gibson, pitching a program where his son and some of the other young Nantucketers from Riverview could help clean up the island. He negotiated a pay rate of $15 an hour. Gibson accepted. And with that, Malitsky launched Inclusive Work Opportunities Nantucket (IWON).

Today, the summer program provides developmentally disabled young people (ages 16-24) with paid work experience that not only helps them build their skills and qualifications for future jobs, but serves the greater Nantucket community, too.



“The data on people with disabilities having paid work experience prior to finishing school is so advantageous for the possibilities of independence afterward,” Malitsky says.

A growing body of research suggests that such opportunities significantly increase the chances for more paid work in the future, which can lead to longer-term economic well-being, greater self-sufficiency and, ultimately, reduced costs in social services for people with disabilities, among other benefits. It’s one of the reasons Malitsky was driven to spearhead the project in the first place.

“Since then, the town has been really wonderful,” he adds. In 2023 and 2024, it awarded IWON a $10,000 grant. IWON also received $2,000 from the Nantucket Land Bank (NLB) and $1,000 from the Nantucket Land and Water Council last year (NLWC). With those funds, IWON has hired supervisors to oversee the annual program and help members develop additional vocational, social, civic, and leadership skills.

Having just wrapped its third year, the program partners with the town of Nantucket to pick up litter all over the island—along bike paths, at beaches, in fields, protected lands, cemeteries, and parking lots—five days a week throughout the summer. As part of their on-the-job training, IWON members learn about waste management from DPW parks and recreation manager Charles Polachi, who directs them in sorting the garbage they collect into proper waste streams.

Since its start, Malitsky has expanded the program into different types of work opportunities, branching into the Take-It-or-Leave-It under the guidance of Alice Kellogg this year. Last summer, the organization partnered with the NLB and the NLWC to help with landscaping and orchard pest management as well as work on an eelgrass restoration project.

After some members expressed interest in office work, Malitsky sought to create additional jobs. As a result, IWON tackled a mountain of paperwork for the NLB and NLWC—organizing, scanning, and digitizing their paper forms. “We got through the material way faster than anyone expected us to,” says Malitsky, noting that it was “a huge time-saving and cost-saving benefit to our partners.”

Nantucket resident Nora Harrington, a social worker whose training focused on children with disabilities, became IWON’s first supervisor for the summer of 2023. She managed a team of 11 as they performed their various morning and afternoon gigs. “Being able to learn from them and share their experiences was incredible,” she says. “By the end, they had a better grasp of who they were and what their next steps could be.”

IWON has also received valuable support from other members of the community, including Jenn Christiansen of Nantucket Public Schools and parents like Malitsky’s wife Anne Brynn, Linda Ledoux, Laura Steele, and Diana Turk. Turk’s son, Jamie, worked two summers with IWON, but this year he landed a job at Bartlett’s Farm, which Turk says is a testament to how well IWON prepared him for working on the open market. He learned what it meant to show up every day and get paid to do a job. “This is what the research tells us about how best to help make people with disabilities productive members of society,” says Turk.



Looking ahead, Malitsky hopes to secure enough job prospects to transition IWON into a full-time, year-round program.