Pontiac's Summer Youth Employment Program
Summer at Micah 6 Community is always our busiest season. Kids are out of school, neighbors are walking around, our interns are here, the gardens are growing and volunteer groups work with us nearly every week! In 2023 we added a new addition to our summer schedule and that is the Summer Youth Employment Program from the Department of Natural Resources. This program and funding allows us to hire a number of Pontiac high schoolers to work with us for the summer and get exposed to a number of jobs in the outdoors including natural resource management, park maintenance, wildlife conservation, and more! Another great component of the program is working on college and career readiness skills as well as ensuring that the teens leave with a variety of certifications and tools that they can walk away from the program with- CPR certification, Updated Resumes, fishing licenses, etc.
As with most new things, there is a trial period where we are all figuring it out together, and that’s a lot of what 2023 felt like. The teens had a lot of fun, and they got to experience a lot of new things. They did water testing, kayaked, invasive species removal, worked in the gardens, visited a dark sky park, toured a few colleges, and even went on a camping trip. These were all big wins! There were also lots of moments that made us wonder how we could adjust. Questions like how do we improve consistency in attendance in the midst of transportation challenges? How can we work on timeliness? Are the activities serving as on-ramp experience for post-program work? Do they find this meaningful? Are we completing the expected documentation and reporting for the program well? And the questions continued.
As with most things, I find it can be tricky to see the light in the midst of a thing. Yes, there were so many great moments throughout our first summer, but sometimes the emails, scheduling, and long days cloud that. However, once you are on the other side, it can become easier to see those special moments. That came for me a few months after the program wrapped up.
That first year, we had three teens that stuck the program out through the entirety of the summer, and to encourage them to begin a job search, we offered a small stipend to them if they applied to a few jobs for the school year, and all three took us up on that offer. Not only that, but they all went through the application and interview process on their own and all landed jobs. Two worked at the mall while attending high school and the third got a job at Amazon. As I sit and write this, it is the end of June 2024, and not only have two of them returned for a second year in the program, but they are still working their other jobs. They have maintained their personal bank accounts, opened up additional savings accounts, gone to prom, are saving up for a car, and all of these little things just make me sit here and go “yeah, I see it now. It was worth it.”
I have learned to see our Summer Youth Employment Program as an on-ramp of sorts. Together, let’s flex the muscles of showing up each day to work on time. We are going to wear these program shirts each day as a uniform. We’re going to figure out what it means to have co-workers, and still show up each day to work together. Also, let’s articulate our experience through this job on a resume you can take with you, let’s visit colleges and local workplaces, let’s learn how to budget our money… in a space with and that values the fun that can come alongside these things. Then, at the end of these eight weeks, we are here to support, but ask yourself what you want to do next and run with it!
We are currently three weeks into our 2024 program, and there’s 8 incredible teens, many of whom this is their first job. It’s fun! There is a lot of energy and excitement from them, but also from us. We are looking forward to championing this group throughout the summer and beyond.
