Summer Jobs Program

Amber Barner has had a summer job through the city's YouthWorks program seven times, every year since she was 14. But this time is different. This time her job will outlast the summer. That twist comes courtesy of Baltimore's fledgling effort to encourage businesses to hire young adults directly through the city's program, rather than simply donate money to help cover their wages elsewhere. Wells Fargo, part of YouthWorks' new Hire One Youth initiative, decided to hire at least one young person for a permanent job. "It's my first time working at a bank," said Barner, 20, a teller at the company's Hamilton branch.

Preregistration ends today for YouthWorks, Baltimore's summer jobs program for young people. YouthWorks places teens and young adults between ages 14 and 21 in a six-week summer work experience throughout the city. So far, more than 11,000 young people are have submitted registrations this year, a spokeswoman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said. Those interested can preregister at youthworks.oedworks.com . lbroadwater@baltsun.com Twitter.com/lukebroadwater

With its summer-jobs-for-youth budget suddenly almost doubled -- thanks to an emergency urban aid package passed by Congress Wednesday -- Baltimore is now scurrying to find 2,500 more disadvantaged teen-agers who want to work."

Amber Barner has had a summer job through the city's YouthWorks program seven times, every year since she was 14. But this time is different. This time her job will outlast the summer. That twist comes courtesy of Baltimore's fledgling effort to encourage businesses to hire young adults directly through the city's program, rather than simply donate money to help cover their wages elsewhere. Wells Fargo, part of YouthWorks' new Hire One Youth initiative, decided to hire at least one young person for a permanent job. "It's my first time working at a bank," said Barner, 20, a teller at the company's Hamilton branch.

WASHINGTON -- Without the federal government's summer jobs program, 20-year-old Anthony Ron Smith of Baltimore says, he would probably be searching for a hard-to-find job as an entry-level carpenter. Instead, thanks to a job last summer at the Baltimore City Fire Department, Mr. Smith is slated to continue his education at the fire academy."I look to the program as a stepping stone," he said yesterday. The program, he said, allowed "me to make a brighter contribution to the community."Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and U.S. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich, along with others involved in the summer jobs program, kicked off the 1995 session yesterday by praising President Clinton for retaining the initiative, which Republicans had sought to kill, and by calling for businesses to help.

For 17-year-old Tikesha Trent, the choice between a summer of sleeping late and watching TV or a summer of weeding, painting and mulching was easy.The Dundalk High School senior said she knew that dozing and watching talk shows wouldn't help her open a bank account.LTC So for the fourth year in a row, Tikesha threw away the chance to loaf and joined 100 other youths yesterday at the Carver Center for Arts and Technology in Towson to start her six-week summer job at $4.25 an hour. The young people will be assigned to various job sites throughout the summer.

Last school year, Brandon Briggs worked at a fast-food restaurant near his Woodlawn home. But this summer, the 16-year-old is being paid to spend his summer at Catonsville Community College learning about careers in printing and machine tools.Wearing a bright orange T-shirt and matching bandanna, Brandon rolls his eyes and laughs when asked which job is better. It's no contest, he says."This is interesting. It's good. It can help you succeed in life," he says.Brandon and 13 other high school students are participating in the newest phase of a 30-year-old federal summer jobs program that has evolved from a way to pay disadvantaged youths for menial summer labor to one that seeks to expand their personal vistas.

Remember your first job? Remember how it felt to earn your own money? How all the things grown-ups tried to teach you about responsibility suddenly became clearer? Remember learning the value of taking a workmanlike approach to any endeavor? Thousands of teen-agers in Baltimore may miss those important lessons this year.The Republican House, in its laudable but sometimes misdirected zeal to achieve deficit reduction, has passed a "Contract with America" that doesn't include a summer jobs program for youths.

BALTIMORE Juvenile Justice Center fight leaves 3 staff members hurt Three staff members at the state-run Baltimore Juvenile Justice Center were slightly injured yesterday during an altercation with a group of teenagers, an official said. LaWanda Edwards, a spokeswoman for the center on North Gay Street, said the incident occurred about 11 a.m. as staff members were taking seven teens out for recreation. She said one teen became "unruly, and allegedly hit a staff member." As staff members tried to calm the teen, others joined the fracas, Edwards said.

Teen-agers eager to join Baltimore's work force this summer are flocking to the City Youth Works center downtown in hopes of improving their economic future."

With no federal stimulus money available this year, participation in a key summer employment program for city youth has fallen to the lowest level since before the recession began. About 5,400 young people have been placed in jobs this summer through the city's YouthWorks program. That's down from last year's peak of 7,000 jobs, when about $2 million in stimulus funds was pumped into the program. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake preserved the city's contribution of $1.6 million to the program, despite the city's bleakest budget in recent memory.

The coats -- one fashioned from lustrous mink, the other from whorls of sable-colored Persian lamb -- rest on hangers from a high-end furrier. A tag is looped around each fur, marked with the name of the woman who once owned them, and, in bold, black letters: "EVIDENCE." One would not normally expect to find two fur coats hanging in a conference room in the Office of the State Prosecutor. But these furs have a remarkable past: gifts to Baltimore's former mayor, Sheila Dixon, from a developer ex-boyfriend, they were seized by investigators after Dixon failed to disclose them on city ethics forms.

Recently moved from Northern Virginia to his dad's home in Columbia, 16-year-old Xavier T. Bates found a summer job despite the recession, thanks to some help from the federal government. Like 27 other Howard County youths, Bates is working 25 hours a week for six weeks, making $8 an hour in federal stimulus money in what officials say is the first summer jobs program of its kind in the county in years. He plans to contribute some of his earnings to his family while also saving for college, he said.

BALTIMORE Juvenile Justice Center fight leaves 3 staff members hurt Three staff members at the state-run Baltimore Juvenile Justice Center were slightly injured yesterday during an altercation with a group of teenagers, an official said. LaWanda Edwards, a spokeswoman for the center on North Gay Street, said the incident occurred about 11 a.m. as staff members were taking seven teens out for recreation. She said one teen became "unruly, and allegedly hit a staff member." As staff members tried to calm the teen, others joined the fracas, Edwards said.

Across Baltimore, thousands of teen-agers and young adults are getting a taste of what it is like to arrive on time for work, follow a supervisor's instructions and budget money. For some of them, it is the first time they have worked anywhere other than a fast-food restaurant. And for others, it is their first time working. Crystal Hardy, 16, a Forest Park High School honors student who will be a junior when school starts, is among the 5,500 people ages 14 to 21 who have been placed in jobs this summer by the city-sponsored YouthWorks 2003 program.

Stacks of classroom furniture line the darkened hallways of Patapsco High School in eastern Baltimore County. On an afternoon thick with haze, doors yawn open to catch the slightest gift of a summer breeze.Here in a school mostly shuttered for the summer, Edward Wiley Jr., 14, and fellow members of Summer Enrichment Camp -- a branch of America's summer jobs program -- are expanding their horizons through the program born in the tumultuous 1960s.Not long ago, the soft-spoken Wiley thought he was headed for the steel mill like his father and grandfather.

WASHINGTON -- A "very worried" Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke came to Capitol Hill yesterday to protest a Republican-led effort to wipe out the decades-old federal summer jobs program for disadvantaged youths.Baltimore, he said, does not need an additional 3,766 restless young people idle and on the streets in the hottest months of the year. That is the number of jobs already promised to young people, 14 to 21 years old, recruited in the city this year.The mayor shared a podium in the Capitol with Democratic opponents of the Republican legislation to cut $17.3 billion from the federal government's operating costs, mainly by cutting or eliminating social programs, such as the jobs plan.

Last school year, Brandon Briggs worked at a fast-food restaurant near his Woodlawn home. But this summer, the 16-year-old is being paid to spend his summer at Catonsville Community College learning about careers in printing and machine tools.Wearing a bright orange T-shirt and matching bandanna, Brandon rolls his eyes and laughs when asked which job is better. It's no contest, he says."This is interesting. It's good. It can help you succeed in life," he says.Brandon and 13 other high school students are participating in the newest phase of a 30-year-old federal summer jobs program that has evolved from a way to pay disadvantaged youths for menial summer labor to one that seeks to expand their personal vistas.

Teen-agers eager to join Baltimore's work force this summer are flocking to the City Youth Works center downtown in hopes of improving their economic future."