Life Altering Opportunities
By
Steve Pastis
Tulare County - Getting a summer job has been a life-changing opportunity for Issac Sandoval.
He is one of about 1,700 young people who have been put to work this summer in Tulare County in a program paid for by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – federal stimulus money. Tulare County got nearly $9 million to use to help people find jobs, including the summer Youth@Work program.
“I like it a lot,” said Sandoval, who cleans rooms, transports patients back to their rooms and stocks shelves at Kaweah Delta Medical Center. “People are real nice and I'm learning a lot here.”
He said that the program has changed his life “big time.”
“I wanted a career since I've been out of high school,” Sandoval said. “Once I heard that we could work here at the hospital, I wanted to work here. Now that I see what goes on here, I want to be a surgical technician.”
He had planned to enroll in the police academy this summer to become a policeman, but he submitted his application too late. “I'd rather work here anyway,” he said. He has submitted an application to continue his job on a permanent basis.
Sandoval and his wife, Aaron, are expecting a baby in August. Aaron is also employed through the Youth@Work program, working at the district attorney's office.
By the end of summer, the 1,700 young people will have been given jobs in 600 worksites in Tulare County through the program.
“It's going great,” said
Adam Peck, executive director of the Tulare County Workforce Investment
Board which oversees the program in the county. He expects to have 1,000
kids working at sites across Tulare County by the end of the week.
The young people, ages 14-24, are given jobs, working between 120-150
hours over the summer for which they are paid $8 an hour. “Many
of these jobs are entry-level, but they are meaningful,” said Peck.
Their wages are paid for with the stimulus money.
Community worksites include The Urban Tree Foundation (UTF), Weatherization Services, horticulture project at the Tulare County Juvenile Detention Facility, beatification projects at local high schools, school nutrition projects and the Tulare County Office of Education Theatre Company. Twenty-nine students have been given summer jobs at Kaweah Delta Medical Center.
“This is the largest needs list we've ever had,” said Belinda Vernon, human resources specialist for Kaweah Delta. “We asked managers of every department what their needs were. Then we looked at the students and asked them what their interests were and what they liked to do.”
Four students were selected for dietary positions at the hospital. One of them, Martin Gonzales, expressed an interest in working in restaurants and was given a job as a catering host for the summer. He works in the hospital cafeteria, hosts on floors, works at cooking stations, stocks food and caters.
“It's a great place to learn,” Gonzales said. “I'm learning a lot of new things.”
Although he is not sure what he wants to do, he said this opportunity will help him get his career off the ground. If his summer job leads him to someday own or operate a restaurant, he said, “I would be happy doing that.”
Earlier this month, 1,400 students went through two five-hour sessions where they learned, among other things, how to create a resume, fill out an application, how to dress and use the right vocabulary at work, and how to conduct themselves on a job interview.
“They would bring in a candidate every 10 minutes and we would interview them,” said Vernon. “It was very exciting to see how they all came in, shook your hand and introduced themselves. It's scary to sit across the table from two strangers and answer questions.”
“We would love to have a project like this next year,” said Bonney Parks, senior program coordinator with C-SET Youth Department, which brings many of the students into the program. She said that the program would continue next year, whether it is again funded by stimulus money or on a smaller scale by the Youth Force Investment Board or the Board of Supervisors.
“They're great students,” said Parks about this summer's participants. “They just needed a chance.”
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