Leann Maldonado has learned a valuable lesson working at the Bliss Unlimited retail store running a retail store is not as easy as it looks. The John Burroughs High School student is one of 20 students working at the store in the Burbank Town Center Mall to earn school credit and learn workplace skills. “I thought that I could order what I want and that people would buy it,” Maldonado said. “But you have to think about everybody and not just what you would want to buy.” The 700-square foot store is a creation of We Care For Youth, a non-profit group working with Los Angeles area teenagers and has its roots in an employment readiness program the organization began in the late 1990s. We Care For Youth co-founders Jose Quintanar and Linda Maxwell hadn’t been looking to start a business but when working with area chambers of commerce to find jobs for the students in the program didn’t pan out, they reconsidered. “We saw the wisdom in providing practical on-the-job experience,” Quintanar said. Bliss Unlimited originally operated in the Glendale Galleria from 1998 to 2001. While most of the work is done by the students earning credit through the Los Angeles County Regional Occupation Program, a number of paid staff is present as is a teacher handling recordkeeping and disciplinary matters. Workplace skills What students come away with from working at the store are general workplace skills such as being on time, and more retail specific, such as the best way to display products around the store. “Store display is very important to the success of a store,” Quintanar said. “So we worked with them to teach them how to do it and take their ideas.” David Gold, of Corporate Identity Apparel in Burbank, who supplies the T-shirts sold at Bliss Unlimited, said he supports the program because it is giving the students practical experience in buying, selling and marketing. He’d favor hiring someone who participated in that program over someone who had learned retailing in a classroom, Gold said. “I’m hands on and this is very hands on,” Gold added. “What you learn in the classroom is one thing but once you get into the real world it’s different.” Items sold at the store range from jewelry, T-shirts and corporate and individual gift baskets made by the students to indigenous products from Mexico, Vietnam, Nepal and China. “It adds to and complements what is already sold at the mall,” said Town Center General Manager Alan Osadchey. The program doesn’t necessarily mean every student goes on to a career in the business world, although one former student now works at the cosmetics counter at the Macy’s in the Town Center Mall, while another, 22-year-old Guyane Odudzhyan, is a paid employee at Bliss Unlimited. As a Glendale High School student, Odudzhyan worked at the Galleria store and the current crop of students reminds her of herself at that age when they get easily distracted. “But once you give them something to do they work as a team,” Odudzhyan said. Mall deal For its Burbank venture, We Care For Youth found a partner in Crown Realty & Development, owner of the Town Center Mall which donated the space for the store for a minimum of three years. Space at the Glendale Galleria was also at no cost but was not guaranteed if another business wanted to come in. That resulted in Bliss Unlimited having to move around to different spaces during the three years it operated at the Galleria, Quintanar said. The arrangement with Crown Realty in Burbank guarantees the store will remain on the lower level near Macy’s. The mall management saw the wisdom in signing a one-year agreement, and recently renewed for a second year, Osadchey said. “We don’t have to worry about somebody else coming in,” Quintanar added.