CRT

The Summer Youth Employment Learning Program students, through civic engagement activities, completed work remotely at home, designing community awareness campaigns through the creation of yard signs. This included promotion of the 2020 Census and Get Out To Vote. Students were provided with blank yard signs and the necessary art supplies to design their own creative message to the Hartford community. The students were tasked with conducting research weekly on the topics and having discussions on what they learned. We anticipate over 300 yard signs were created and displayed throughout the City of Hartford.

East Hartford

In our first year as the Summer Youth Employment and Learning Program provider for East Hartford, we are proud of all the interns that participated in our programming this year. We would specifically like to highlight two interns who excelled in their work placements, Natalee Ware and Nryiah Kelly. Both were stand out employees at JB Pride Uniforms, where their customer service, adaptability, and hard work led their worksite supervisor, Suzanne Sebastian, to offer both youth positions at the company. We know just how big this opportunity is for our youth and appreciate our partnership with JB Pride Uniforms.

HRA

The HRA Summer Program for Tiers 1 and 2 was divided into three projects, namely, The UCONN Expanded Food and Nutrition Education program, Tunxis Photography, and the Human Services project.

The participants in all three projects gained valuable information through virtual individual projects, conducting research, creating new recipes and using Google Docs to complete assignments.

The Tunxis Photography project enabled youth to tell personal stories through their cameras and the Instructor was very complimentary of the work that the participants did.

OIC

The Capital Workforce Partners’ Summer Youth Employment and Learning Program (SYELP) had many challenges this summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of our regular worksites were closed and employers didn’t want to add any addition employees especially youth. OICNB’s Tier III program still rose to the occasion with youth going to work and attending the Career Labs component. One young man that stands out and was employed at OICNB as the COVID-19 maintenance person is John Prebish. John is a recent graduate of New Britain High School and this was his second year in OICNB’s summer employment program. John has been involved with OICNB since middle school in our after schools programs and our Saturday program,” Men of Many Colors”. All of OICNB programs utilize the “career competency system with youth in high school receiving a half credit towards graduation. It really pays off when youth can move through the tier system and graduate from high school in four years. John will be attending Tunxis Community College in the fall. The importance of summer employment is critical for youth especially during this pandemic. Many of our youth continue to help their families especially this summer.