WILMINGTON, Delaware (WPVI) — When the lunch bell rings, it’s time for special education students to shine. It all happens in a school cafe where inclusion is the top item on the menu.

Thomas McKean High School, which has a large population of special education students, has various avenues for collaboration with regular education peers. The Unified Sports program and video game club are two examples.

Three years ago, the school launched the ‘Brew and Bake Cafe.’ There, special education students and their peers in student government work together behind the counter.

Fellow students serve as real customers, ordering snacks and drinks in between classes.

It provides job skills, communication skills, and a chance for friendships to form.

Watch the video above to see the students in action.

Wilmington man turns life around with help from St. Patrick’s Center

Thousands of Delawareans stuck in a backlog of unemployment claims are finally getting their checks, thanks in part to a group of recent Code Differently graduates. 

Mission Backlog, a program that puts recently-trained software engineers to work inside the state’s unemployment system, is a collaboration between the Delaware Department of Labor and the Wilmington-based tech workforce organization. It’s part of the DOL’s Modernization 2.0 strategy, which the department announced on September 30, 2025.

“You naturally feel a sense of urgency, because people are calling and saying, I need to pay my rent,” Delaware Secretary of Labor LaKresha Moultrie told Technical.ly. “Those benefits support everyday basic needs.”

How do people trained for software engineering fit? The logic behind the partnership, according to Code Differently cofounder and CEO Stephanie Eldridge, was about applying an engineering mindset to a complex system.

“Some may look at it as people answering phones, but the way you’re able to drive this backlog down is with people using those logic and critical thinking skills to understand there’s a pattern,” Eldridge said. 

That approach mirrors how software engineers are trained to think, she said, even when the work itself isn’t technical in the traditional sense.

The idea for the collaboration goes back to a conversation Secretary Moultrie had with Eldridge earlier last year. 

“She has a lot of bright ideas,” Moultrie said of the CEO, whose organization trains people for careers in software engineering and related technical roles. “Organically, through conversation with Stephanie, we decided to take on a [Code Differently] cohort.”

The official Modernization 2.0 plan describes hiring 25 Code Differently graduates as part of the backlog reduction strategy. To move quickly, the department relied on casual and seasonal roles, a more flexible hiring pathway than the formal, bureaucracy-entwined merit process. 

The lingering effects of the pandemic, a nationwide issue

Mission Backlog was launched to help clear a lingering backlog of unresolved unemployment insurance claims. 

Those claims are intended to function as a short-term safety net, helping workers cover essentials like rent, childcare and groceries after losing a job. When claims go unresolved, those delays can quickly turn into a crisis for households waiting on decisions.

The backlog in Delaware follows a national pattern. When COVID forced shutdowns, unemployment claims surged far beyond what most states’ staffing models and decades-old systems were designed to handle. Some states relied on emergency staffing, including National Guard deployments, to work through the massive backlogs. 

Federal oversight agencies later flagged unemployment insurance as a high-risk area, citing legacy technology, heavy manual processing and administrative strain that made it difficult for states to recover once claim volume eased.

Delaware Secretary of Labor LaKresha Moultrie (Courtesy of State of Delaware)

Various efforts to modernize state unemployment infrastructure are underway. For example, Kentucky’s state unemployment agency entered a six-year, $55.5 million contract to modernize its unemployment insurance system, expected to be fully functional by 2028. 

When Moultrie stepped into her secretary of labor role in January 2025, the strain was still weighing on Delaware’s system.

“Coming in, we had about 7,000 outstanding claims,” she said. Since then, the department reports cutting that number by 40% by the end of 2025. In December, the state said it had reduced the backlog to fewer than 4,000, crediting workflow changes and staffing initiatives tied to Modernization 2.0.

Moultrie said the department is on track to be fully caught up by the end of the first quarter. State leaders are already looking beyond unemployment claims, exploring whether the same approach could be deployed inside other agencies.

Looking ahead, the challenge will be sustaining gains once the backlog is cleared. Delaware leaders have described the work as an early phase of a longer modernization effort, one that other agencies are now watching closely.

Ultimately, Eldridge said, the most meaningful part of Mission Backlog is who’s doing the work.

“The people that are part of this, who come to us, are unemployed,” Eldridge said. “They have been in the place of people that they’re now trying to to help.”

A community in Wilmington, Delaware, stepped up and helped a local animal shelter after their building’s heat stopped working on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026.

The Humane Animal Partners in Wilmington put out a message on Saturday seeking urgent help for the more than 20 dogs and puppies staying at its facility, writing in part, “Now more than ever, we are in desperate need of towels, blankets, comforters, and sheets to help keep our pups warm!”

The team told NBC10 that their dog adoption room went down to around 40 degrees and they were rotating dogs in and out of small areas with utility heaters. However, people in the community began answering their call for help within minutes and showed up with arms full of donations.

“It’s freezing outside, so why not assist people that need it, and animals that need it,” said Alexandra Pantanero, of Wilmington.

The shelter eventually had so much donations that they had piles up to the ceiling.

“I would say thousands,” said Kristen Solge – Humane animal partnership. “We have sleeping bags, beddings, towels sheets, space heaters, treats, of course. I think our most interesting would be the fire place somebody donated. It’s been really overwhelming and great.”

Solge said the heat is expected to be fixed by Monday, but the help is something they will never forget.

“It’s incredible. Anytime our community can come together and support us we are extremely grateful,” Solge said. “It also restores our faith in humanity.”