JANESVILLE, WI (Spectrum News 1) —In 2018 the employment rate for people living with disabilities in the U.S. was about 19% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

One program called Project Search looks to address that for people with intellectual disabilities by helping them get jobs in hospitals.

Mercyhealth Hospital in Janesville just finished its first year of the project and held a graduation ceremony on Friday.

Like any graduation day, you can find a proud mother in the crowd.

“I'm going to try not to cry,” said Lisa Graves. “I'm proud, very proud of what he's done what he's accomplished in the past year.”

Lisa Graves's son Ashton Thompson is one of Mercyhealth Hospital's first graduates from its Project Search class.

It's a school to work transition program for people 18 to 24 with intellectual disabilities.

“I've been excited for this all year ever since project search even started, but this day is pretty big for us,” Thompson said.

Thompson was hired at Mercyhealth in the laundry department because of the program. When the 18-year-old got the job, his first call was to mom.

“It was pretty exciting, I really enjoyed calling her and I just said mom they called they want me to work and i got the job and her reaction to me, I was like I think I made my mom really proud with what I did here at project search and how I'm going to be working here at mercy,” Thompson said.

Proud is exactly how Graves would describe it.

“Very proud because he's been through multiple applications and not even getting a call back,” Graves said. “This is one milestone i didn't know if we would ever get and we got it.”

His project search instructor is proud of him too.

“He is just a fantastic young man, i'm so proud of him,” said Amy Kiffin, a Project Search instructor at Mercyhealth.

Kiffin is proud of all of her students.

“The role of project search is to show that students, or individuals with disabilities, have the same skills, the same dreams, the same desires and the same ability to be a competitive worker,” Kiffin said.

This is the first graduating class for Mercyhealth, though they plan to keep the program going. New graduate aThompson has advice for next year's class.

To all the interns who are coming next year, don't ever give up and if you get frustrated always ask for help,” Thompson said.

Many of the other students have job interviews or are waiting to hear back from businesses.