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Emerald Bagby didn’t want to sit around and do
nothing all summer. Instead, the soon-to-be sophomore
at Springfield High School joined 17 other teens in The Springfield
Project’s summer employment program. “They were offering good
jobs, so we wouldn’t be bored at home,” Bagby says. Bagby signed on to work in a
local church’s daycare; other teens in the program found employment
with the city of Springfield, the Springfield Housing Authority, the
University of Illinois at Springfield, and the Greater Springfield Chamber
of Commerce. Timothy Rowles, executive
director of TSP, says he came up with the idea for the program five years
ago as a way to get more kids into office-type settings. He hopes that
their experiences will encourage them to seek out better careers when they
get older. “There’s nothing
wrong with working at McDonald’s,” Rowles says, “but we
want to turn them on to good higher-paying jobs so they can see how
businesses are started, become business owners, and become job
suppliers.”
More than 100 area youth have
graduated from the six-week program, Rowles says, earning paychecks from
TSP, a not-for-profit agency involved in a variety of community-improvement
efforts. Although many organizations don’t like to hire inexperienced
or young teenagers, he says, 15 area employers agreed to participate this
summer. The program came to a close last
Friday, Aug. 3, with the ceremonial handing out of final paychecks and
these words of encouragement from TSP chairman Sandy Robinson: “I want to make sure you
recognize the opportunity you realized this summer. We expect to hear good
things from all of you, we are very excited about what you’re going
to do, and we will keep an eye on you as you move forward.”
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Aug 2-8, 2007.
