Mayor Rawlings-Blake Announces “Hire One Youth” Initiative for City’s YouthWorks 2012 Program
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake launched a new campaign to support the YouthWorks 2012 Summer Jobs program. The Hire One Youth initiative is an effort to reach out to every business in Baltimore, inviting them to join the City in creating valuable summer employment opportunities for Baltimore’s teens. The Mayor is challenging each of Baltimore’s nearly 13,000 employers to hire at least one young person for a six-week summer job as part of YouthWorks 2012. The City’s annual YouthWorks program places young people between the ages of 14 and 21 in six-week summer work experiences with private-sector businesses, nonprofits, and City and State government agencies.
“By giving a young person a summer job, you can help prepare tomorrow’s workforce for the challenges and responsibilities of adulthood,” Mayor Rawlings-Blake said. “I urge every private company, every nonprofit organization, and every government agency that is counting on a productive workforce for Baltimore City—now and in the future—to stand up now.”
To help champion the Hire One Youth initiative within the Baltimore business community, the Mayor is creating a special leadership team of city employers. John Ashworth of University of Maryland Medical System and University of Maryland School of Medicine and chair of the Baltimore Workforce Investment Board (BWIB) will be part of the team. Andy Bertamini, Regional President for Wells Fargo, is also joining the Mayor’s leadership team. Wells Fargo provided financial literacy education for the YouthWorks 2011 participants and plans to do the same in 2012.
“As chair of the BWIB, I work with a team of business and workforce development professionals to help create a public workforce engine that drives Baltimore City toward sustained prosperity,” said Mr. Ashworth. “Preparing our future workforce is certainly a significant piece of this mission, and I can attest that YouthWorks is a successful training ground for our city’s young workers.”
“At Wells Fargo we believe we have a great opportunity — and a great responsibility — to invest in the future of our local communities,” said Mr. Bertamini. “We recognize that preparing our future workforce is critical to the long-term economic prosperity and quality of life for everyone in our communities.”
Any employer that signs on to hire YouthWorks participants in 2012 will be provided with a pool of pre-screened, qualified young people to interview. Employers can select the applicants who best meet their summer employment needs. YouthWorks job coaches will be assigned to each hiring organization to answer questions and serve as a direct link to the YouthWorks program. Throughout the summer, the job coaches will visit the worksites to provide encouragement and support to the youth workers and ensure a productive summer experience for all involved.
Employers willing to hire youth will have two options. They can either put the youth workers directly on their payrolls or have the YouthWorks program manage the payroll expenses by making a payment to the Baltimore City Foundation/YouthWorks to support the wages of the participants who will work at their place of business.
“If every employer will, at a minimum, Hire One Youth, our city’s young people will be productively engaged this summer, and all of Baltimore will benefit,” said Karen Sitnick, director of the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development, which has operated YouthWorks for more than 30 years. “It is our sincere hope that employers will step up to the plate and join Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s citywide effort to make the summer of 2012 work for everyone—businesses, youth, and our economy.”
In addition to launching the Hire One Youth initiative to kick off fundraising efforts in support of the 2012 program, Mayor Rawlings-Blake celebrated the success of YouthWorks 2011.
This past summer, 5,000 city youth had the chance to earn and learn through their experience in YouthWorks. At a cost of $1,200 per participant to cover the wages for the six-week, 25 hour per week positions, several funding sources were utilized to operate the program. Baltimore City provided more than $1.6 million for YouthWorks 2011, supplementing other funding that included more than $350,000 in contributions from local businesses, foundations, and individuals, and $1 million from the Department of Social Services. Also in 2011, Governor Martin O’Malley recognized the program’s value and provided $1.13 million from the State’s supplemental budget.
“The return on this investment that we’ve seen time and again is that a productive summer job can have a lasting effect on a young person’s life,” said Ms. Sitnick. “Through targeted matching of job assignments to older teens’ career interests and an emphasis on effective work behaviors, YouthWorks helps our future workforce develop the skills required to build careers and become effective employees.”
YouthWorks participants recognize the value of their work experiences and the lessons they learn on the job.
Aaron Dingle, 17, a student at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and a first-time YouthWorks participant in 2011, spent the summer working in Mercy Medical Center’s rehabilitation department. He summed up his experience by saying, “I’ve learned that, whatever you’re working on, work hard at it. You never know where opportunities will take you.”
Tax-deductible donations to YouthWorks can be sent to:
Baltimore City Foundation/YouthWorks
c/o Mayor’s Office of Employment Development
101 W. 24th Street
Baltimore, MD 21218.
For more information about YouthWorks, please visit www.oedworks.com.
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