For most folks, today means its back to work after the long Memorial Day weekend.
But for many of the students participating in the City of Columbus Summer Job program, today marks their introduction into the working world.
The program, now in its 23rd year, began at 7 a.m. today for the 25 students taking part. To be eligible, students must be residents of the city who are students between the ages of 16 and 24. Although there are a few college students in the program each year, most are high school students. For many, it is their first paying job.
“It’s really a mixture,” Travis Jones, who oversees the program on a day-to-day basis, said. “Some of them will have had jobs before, but for just as many, it’s the first time they’ve really been exposed to the working world.”
Jones has supervised the kids in the program for 20 years. The biggest challenges the students face, he said, is the most basic: Getting to work on time and being ready to work.
“Really, this program is as much about learning what it means to have a job as the work itself,” Jones said. “It’s things like showing up on time, taking directions, following instructions. But it goes farther than that. We have a week of instruction, where we bring in speakers to share information about how to go through the job interview process, how to manage their money — credit, balancing a checkbook, saving. It’s more than just a summer job. It’s about helping them prepare for work later on in life.”
The program is funded through a $20,000 appropriation from the city and a $35,000 grant from the Mississippi Department of Transportation. For the next eight weeks, the students work from 7 a.m. until noon Monday through Thursday at minimum wage, which amounts to a weekly pay-check of about $150, said Christina Berry, the city’s planning and community services director. The kids most often are assigned landscaping work, but Berry said students can work on a variety of tasks.
“This year, we hope to use some of them to conduct some community surveys, which helps us identify what the needs are in our community, such as housing, transportation,” Berry said. “That information is helpful to us as we make our plans, and we feel that using the kids to help with those survey makes a lot of sense.”
Over the years, Jones said the program has proven to be both popular and effective. More than 100 students applied for the 25 positions in the program.
“The kids do stick with the job,” Jones said. “At the most, we may have one — and never more than two — kids drop out, either because they have found another job or some other reason. But the majority of kids really make the commitment.”
The students in this years program are: Carlius Bankhead, Ashley Brandon, Niyah Brooks, Quansima Brooks, Gabriel Brown, Jaquarion Bush, Brianna Cochran, Jaquavise Craddieth, Christopher Deloach, Carlos Draper, Zjhaalexxia Durrah, Bryson Gardner, D’Asia Gordon, Brylen Gore, Tahj Lowery, Justin Perryman, Franklin Poe, Gabrielle Sharp, Javario Sharp, Bryce Shirley, Keyshawn Tate, April Taylor, Jared Turner, Kristopher Tucker and Stephon Wilkerson.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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