The Town of Chapel Hill in collaboration with 97.9 The Hill WCHL & Chapelboro.com present “Our Town: Stories of Chapel Hill.” Each month you’ll hear from the people at the heart of your local government who are learning, serving, and working together to build a community where people thrive. This month, Zequel Hall, who leads the Town’s Summer Youth Employment Program is joined by three of the Town’s young employees, Carlos, Eman, Irene, and Malachi, to tell the story of the Summer Youth Employment Program.
Zequel Hall: The Summer Youth Employment Program is a great opportunity for the Town of Chapel Hill to connect with teens in our community. It is also a way for the teens to get a background view of how the town works, how different departments interact with each other and community partners, as well as learning new skills and getting paid all at the same time. So it’s a great way for us to connect with teens in our community.
Carlos: My experience with the program has been really amazing so far. Last summer I worked at the Chapel Hill Police Department, learning what goes on throughout the day to day in a police station, learning about how the police station actually operates, and then we were able to inventory cars, and go on ride-alongs. I personally thought that that was pretty amazing. That was my favorite experience because we were able to see what a police officer is like outside of the police station and see what they do on a day-to-day basis, and I was just observing everything that was going on. I felt that was a pretty cool experience.
Hall: In addition to creating relationships with the students, we’re also creating relationships with families. And so it’s not just about the students, it’s about the family as a whole. So even though it’s the Summer Youth Employment Program, it’s really a community program because it gives us the opportunity to get to know different families on an personal level, their likes, their dislikes, to get to know their kids and knowing that the care that we take providing and the opportunity to walk their youth through the first steps of gaining career skills or their first steps through their first job, knowing that we take that extra hands-on care throughout the entire process really helps families build confidence in our work with the Summer Youth Employment Program and in our work as a town, as a whole.
Eman: The Summer Youth Employment Program is a program that gave me the experience of my first job. Last summer I worked at the Seymour Center. My favorite part was helping older adults and talking to them, making me feel like I wasn’t talking to a random person. It made me feel like I’m talking to a grandpa or grandma. My favorite part was playing BINGO with them, sitting and eating with them as well. It was a good experience.
Hall: One of the wonderful parts about the Summer Youth Employment Program is that we work hard to place kids with jobs that align with their future career goals, and we like to expose them to new experiences.
Irene: The summer Youth Employment Program was my first job in the United States. Last summer I worked at the Chapel Hill (Public) Library shelving books. Also, every Friday there was a movie night, so I would help with setting up for the movie night, finding lost books, and removing the old books from the shelves. For the connections that I have had from the Summer Youth Employment Program, maybe in the future I can come back as a Town of Chapel Hill permanent employee. Yeah, that would be a great benefit.
Malachi: In my first year at the program I was at the Seymour Center. I worked with the seniors, which was pretty fun. I really enjoyed helping with the movies every Friday. I got to sit and watch and help with the popcorn. It was awesome. Also, the office work was fun too. I mean, I didn’t think I would enjoy it, but I did. It taught me a lot. And for my second year of the program, I was placed into the Chapel Hill Police Department, which was fun. I really enjoyed it. Getting to see how the police department works, meeting the different divisions, like investigations, canine, and patrol, and going to the briefings in the mornings. Also the ride-alongs, and the different events too. Community events, Coffee with a Cop, serving coffee and donuts, and also giving out food like vegetables, drinks, different things that the community needed and it continues to inspire me to have a career in law enforcement.
Hall: One of the great aspects of the program is that we employ youth, and they get paid throughout their job experience during the summer. But in addition to that, we provide additional workshops like the financial literacy workshop, even before they get to the stage where they start their summer job. We provide an interview technique session and as we wrap up for the summer, we show them how to take the skills they’ve learned throughout the course of their job and incorporate them into a resume. So we do resume writing workshops at the end of the summer, and we just love to hear about their experiences. One of the opportunities that we take each summer is to learn from the kids. We like to learn about their experiences so we can continue to improve the program year after year for future youth that come through our program. So it’s a great way for them to learn about us, but for us to learn from them.
Carlos: My experience with the program has been really amazing so far, from the beginning where we are getting taught how to set up bank details through the financial workshops. I feel like that really helped me understand and sort of grow a little bit in a sense, like mature a little bit and develop, and start thinking far ahead in the future of the things that I want to do. For anybody who’s taken interest in the program, I feel like it’s a great opportunity for you to be able to discover what you want to do in the future. There’s a lot of different options in which you can apply to. This program serves as a learning opportunity and a building block to help you develop and learn new things.
Hall: My favorite part about the program is interacting with the youth and there’s an opportunity for us to provide mentorship, but also we gain a lot from it as well. We get to see a lot of the youth grow throughout the course of the program and we may be interacting with future mayors, future council members, future presidents, and so that’s my favorite part of the program. Also, the friendships that we create along the way past the summer. Youth have come back to us and have just come for advice or just to review their resume or talk a little bit about the career path that they’re going into. So that’s a great reward for me and that’s why I’m passionate about the Summer Youth Employment Program.
Click here to learn more and apply to the Summer Youth Employment Program by March 21st.
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