ITEM PHOTO BY MATT DEMIRS
Bubba Comeau cleans up trash from fireworks at the Tennis courts of Cook Street Playground on Wednesday.
By MATT DEMIRS
LYNN — The Summer Youth Employment Program in Lynn began Wednesday, providing work for 120 teens and young adults for seven weeks.
The program, open to Lynn residents between the ages of 16-21, puts college students who possess skills in accounting, finance, nursing, and elementary education, into jobs in their interested field.
Youth applicants with technical skills including automotive, auto body, nursing assistants, and more are placed in positions using their expertise.
Employees are placed in a variety of places, such as: park for cleanups, City Hall, and even a legal firm, just to name a few.
Rich Avery, summer youth employment director, said the program tries to pair kids in a field that interests and benefits them professionally.
“For example, if someone is studying to become an electrician at Lynn Tech, we tried to match them with a business in the area that does electrical work so they can get hands-on experience,” he said.
Some employees have jobs that directly improve quality of life for the city and its people, said program coordinator Kileigh Stranahan.
“The program helps our economy by providing these young adults with a paycheck,” Stranahan said. “What it also does is improve the appearance of our community and strengthen the ties our youth have with their city.”
Bubba Comeau is one of the supervisors for the crew responsible for maintaining parks. On his first day of the summer, he and his crew up cleaned trash from this weekend’s fireworks.
“This is our community and we want to clean up the inner-city and make it a better place,” said Comeau, as he shoveled firecracker scraps on the tennis courts of Cook Street playground. “Lynn is an up-and-coming city, and we’re here to help make it look that way.”
Lynn businesses and nonprofits are also participating in the program by hiring youth employment workers.
Businesses participating in the program will pay youth for 50 percent of their salary, with the city picking up the other 50 percent. For nonprofits, the organization pays 20 percent of the employee’s pay, while the city covers the rest.
Eastern Bank is among the businesses hiring Lynn youth by providing students with jobs in IT, as well as customer service, for example.
“A lot of the applicants needed to have specific skills to apply to some of the jobs from these businesses,” said program manager, Allison Perry. “For example, the Lynn Community Health Center needed an applicant who was also Spanish speaking to meet community needs.”
The Summer Youth Employment Program in Lynn has been taking place since the ’70s and is sponsored by Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy.
The program is funded by a $212,000 state grant, a $44,000 Community Development Block grant, and a generous donation of $25,000 from the Gerondelis Foundation.
Lynn received nearly 300 applicants for this summer and picked students for their respective jobs based on a lottery, after students possessing a special skillset were placed in specific roles.
Since the youngest employees are 16 years old, Perry said this is the first job for a lot of them.
“Many of the kids who came to apply didn’t know how to ask for an application,” Perry said. “Our program is designed not only to put Lynn youth to work, but also to prepare them for future jobs.”
Matt Demirs can be reached at [email protected].