Now, let's see how a different calling helps others.

If you are exploring downtown Belmont and just wanna grab a bite to eat, experience local art, or enjoy a sweet treat, Holy Angels has you covered.

It's all part of the organization's mission to help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities find meaningful work.

Producer Russ Hunsinger takes us for a visit.

(gentle music) - I'm gonna have the Maria's Melt with chicken salad.

- Holy Angels is a nonprofit.

It's a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of Mercy and we serve adults and children who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

We're really a niche provider because we serve children and we serve adults, and we really specialize in serving the medically fragile.

- [Speaker] What you making?

- Broccoli salad.

- Also, we serve folks who are more independent and can have a job and, which is why we have these businesses.

(bright music) - [Speaker 2] Take a big bite.

- [Kerri] So, Cotton Candy is sort of wild.

Really what we wanted to do is we wanted to make this a fun space that you could get any candy you wanted but also make our own cotton candy.

- [Speaker 3] We just keep turning it like that.

- [Kerri] There's a spin on it with cotton and the mills of Gaston County.

- I found different kinds of cotton candy flavors, which is really cool 'cause then my kids can decide what they want to eat and different kind of smoothie blend Jelly Bellys that my kids can try different flavors and eat as well.

- Oh my gosh, one lady one day, I thought she was gonna buy the whole store.

She bought all cotton candy.

- It's cute.

The workers are great.

They've been very sweet and kind.

It's very positive, which we need more.

We need more of that positivity in this world.

(upbeat bright music) - [Kerri] Cherub's Cafe, that was our first business.

It's in its 30th year this year.

- We're here for a lunch date.

We love everything that Holy Angels does and the food is really good to boot.

I have a brother with special needs and so seeing something like this that's built gives me kind of hope that my brother could have something like this one day as far as employment goes.

- Thank you.

- So, I love everything about this, how it's training and equipping them and meeting them where they're at and kind of empowering them for more.

- [Kerri] Our most recent one is called Market on Maine and it's a gift store that we sell items that our residents make.

Handmade candles.

We also are making bracelets and scarves, and the scarves are a piece of art.

- [Samone] Let's open the drawer.

- [Resident] Yes.

- Lift up the tabs.

So today, we opened up the register.

We do that every morning at 10:00, get the registers open.

We have a resident come up.

We like to switch 'cause they all love doing it, so they come up, count the money, put the money in the register, flip the sign, and then they're good to go.

(gentle bright music) - [Kerri] Many of our residents are quite talented and they love doing art and it really means a lot to them.

In our gallery, we're able to display it and the community's able to come in and see it and actually buy it and they're so proud when they sell a piece of their art.

- I've worked here ever since it's been opened.

Oh yeah, make sure the candy's restocked.

If you had the candy looking bad, customers are not gonna like that.

That's bad quality control.

That's why I make sure all the labels are straight, down the line.

- Part of being employed is you're always learning and our residents have very different abilities so when they come here to work, they're working on maybe a math skill and working the register really meets that ability to count money and have a higher level of skill.

Also, there's customer service, getting to know our community and the customers that come in, but really, it is skill building so that maybe one day, the folks that work at Cotton Candy can go out and maybe get a different job, which is really amazing and that that really is our goal.

We really want the folks that we're serving to be able to be contributors to our society as a whole more than they already are.

Belmont is an amazing community.

We love being here.

Our residents are celebrities here.

I mean, they know everyone.

It really is meaningful.

We all like to go to work every day and have a meaningful job, and what makes it meaningful?

Maybe not so much how much we make, but the relationships that we have with our peers, the work that we're doing that means something to us individually, but also getting to know who our community is and where we work.

And so the folks that we're serving and employing get to do just that.

I love our residents because they give me and the people that work with them more than we ever give back to them.

- Makes me proud of myself.

I enjoy working here at Cotton Candy.

I enjoy the customers.

This candy is called Sugar Babies.

You have to have money.

What would you do, sit home on your, sorry.

You wouldn't wanna sit home and see all four walls all day.

- They have their own superpowers.

You just have to figure out what those superpowers are and use that to help them grow.

Good job.

- Yep.

- High five.

(both laughing)