Instead of sleeping in after a long week of classes, 15-year-old Alex Tolbert arrived at the Evanston Civic Center raring to go at 5:45 a.m. – an option he almost didn’t have.
Tolbert was third in line for the Summer Youth Employment job fair. When the doors opened a 9 a.m, the mass of eager students stretched all the way to the parking lot. Tolbert was one of more than 500 students who arrived to participate in the program, which the city manager recommended to cut last winter.
“It’s a very beneficial program and I am very glad that they are having the program this year,” said Brenda Tolbert, Alex Tolbert’s mother.
The Summer Youth Employment Program finds jobs for Evanston teenagers with local employers, including Northwestern. But facing a nearly $4 million budget deficit, City Manager Roger Crum recommended eliminating the program in December.
Aldermen struck the cut in January following a protest of about 90 people outside the civic center during a budget workshop.
The program’s benefits for youth and its 10-year success were among the reasons that prevented it from being cut, Evanston Mayor Lorraine H. Morton said Saturday.
“The program serves a civic purpose, to provide a welfare for all people,” Morton said. “This is one way to expose (youth) to opportunities.”
Because of the economic slowdown, the job fair is even more important this year, the coordinators of the program said.
“Have you seen the unemployment rates for this country?” asked Paula Haynes, executive director of the city’s Human Relations Commission. “Kids need to work, they need to learn responsibility.”
This responsibility includes jobs that benefit the youths’ community, Haynes said. Last summer, participants in the program collected about 62 tons of debris.
This year, the city is spending about $237,000 on the program. The jobs, which last about nine weeks, include office clerks at the civic center and park assistants that help clean up the city’s public areas.
“We’ve solicited employers in the town and the city,” Haynes said. “There will be about 200 jobs available this year,” more than last year.
NU will provide four jobs in the program this year as part of an effort to build better relations with the city, said Mike Roberts, a lead groundskeeper with the university and employer of students. But the number is down from 12 last year, a reduction Morton said was a mistake.
“I believe it’s an oversight for Northwestern,” Morton said.
Last year, about 400 youths attended the fair, but only 113 found jobs.
But despite this, the program works by gathering the city’s employers in one location so youths do not need to search for jobs independently, Tolbert said.
At the fair, the youths completed an application and look through a file containing descriptions of the jobs available, Haynes said. They then received a crash course in interview skills before being turned loose on prospective employers.
“They taught us how we should behave in an interview,” 15-year-old Timothy Williams said. “They told us what we should and should not do. This is my first interview, so it’s really helpful.”
The program also allows youths to experience different fields, “so when I am older, I have an idea of what I want to do,” Williams said.
One reason some teenagers attended the fair was to make money for the summer.
“I want to work so I can have money for the summer, so I can go shopping,” said Nichols Middle School student Tiffany Bleche, 14.
Many employers at the fair agreed that the program was a good experience for the city’s youth.
“We’re helping the kids find their way,” said Roberts, who interviewed teenagers at the fair. “They are eager, they want to work. Of course you get a few who just want to play, but at that age, that’s to be expected.”
