Earlier this month the Los Angeles Speech & Language Therapy Center opened a new customer service Career Skills Lab donated by CVS Health in Culver City. The center will help individuals with autism spectrum disorder gain vocational skills.

The Career Skills Lab is designed to look like a CVS store and allows people to practice tasks like ringing up a customer.

“Our collaboration with CVS Health and the new Career Skills Lab can change the trajectory of our students’ lives by providing them a unique advantage to honing the needed business and social skills essential to be successful in the workplace,” Pamela Wiley, president of the therapy center, said in a statement. “Our parents are also comforted in knowing that their child is thriving with a sense of purpose and fulfillment.”

Justin Sigler, an individual with autism spectrum disorder, attended the center’s opening. He has worked at CVS for roughly five years and is serving as the Career Skills Lab’s peer trainer.

“In the beginning, I didn’t really know how to do things but I had several supervisors and support from the L.A. Speech & Language team help me,” Sigler said. He added that the lab would be a “great place for training and will help people who want to work at places that do retail learn.”

Sigler said the center would help people gain experience and become more independent.

• • •

The Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation has awarded $200,000 to 20 organizations in the San Gabriel Valley in grants. The funding will go to benefiting the community.

Seven new organizations will receive grant support in addition to groups that have in the past. The Assistance League of Pasadena, which helps provide resources for students from low-income families in Pasadena received a $35,000 grant. The Arlington Garden in Pasadena, meanwhile, received a $20,000 grant. There were 18 other initiatives that received grants as well.

The Pasadena Tournament of Roses Foundation has funded more than $5.7 million in charitable contributions on behalf of the Tournament of Roses Association since its founding.

The Insider is compiled by Interim Editor Hannah Welk. She can be reached at [email protected].