North Greene Youth Builders wrap up summer program

By Editor | August 17, 2022 |

By Carmen Ensinger

The North Greene School District wrapped up another successful year of their summer work program on Aug. 5 with a cookout at the high school for the kids who participated.

The summer work program, called the North Greene Youth Builders, is a partnership with the Job Center and is funded through the federal Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA). This is the second year North Greene has participated in the program.

Supervisor Chuck McEvers explains how he first heard about the program last year and eventually got the district involved.

“I was involved in a monthly zoom meeting in 2020 that went on throughout the school year and about every month or so they would talk about how there was money available for kids to go to work,” he said. “It really wasn’t my kind of meeting to be involved in, but by the end of the year, no one had really said anything about these funds so I started making some phone calls and asked what was available.”

He got ahold of Connie Pitts at the Job Center office in Jacksonville and said every question he asked was answered to the affirmative.

“I said, so in other words if we have five kids to put to work, you have the funds for it and she said yes,” he said. “Later in the conversation I said, well how about 10 kids and she said yes to that as well and then she went on to say that if we had 20 kids to put to work they could probably do that as well.”

McEvers ended up with 21 students in the program that first year.

“I told him there are only two provisions to the program,” Pitts said. “The first provision is that it has to be meaningful work. The second provision is that there has to be supervision.”

While the students participating in the program are paid through the Job Center and the federal grant, McEvers salary as supervisor of the students is covered by the school district.

This year there were 24 students in the program, three of them older students who had already graduated, but participated in the program last year. They worked from 7 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday and earned $12 an hour. Except for the group leaders – they earned $14 an hour.

“We broke the kids down into groups consisting of four to five students along with a group leader,” McEvers said. “Then, we had five different groups – we had cleaning, painting, construction, detailing and maintenance.”

McEvers said because the district is paying for his salary for supervising the program, their main focus is doing projects around the district.

“The girls in the program did a lot of painting at the schools this year,” he said. “We also put a roof on the football shed at football field and we had a group of boys that have taken care of the mowing at all three buildings all summer.”

That is not to say that all projects are limited to the North Greene School District. However, there are criteria which must be met to be put on the list.

“The one thing we decided is we will only do a project for a non-profit group or organization,” McEvers said. “We have helped out the city with a few projects, including the tennis courts at Stickley Park and we even put in the lights over the murals at Garden Park, which was a great learning experience for the kids.”

One question which might come to mind is who can qualify for the program.

“Generally, they have to meet an income guideline or have some sort of barrier, such as an IEP (Individualized Education Plan),” McEvers said. “Fortunately, for North Greene, one of the qualifiers is that if a student is eligible for a free lunch, and here all of the students are eligible for free lunches, then they are eligible for the program. So, basically any student at North Greene who wanted to participate in the program could apply.”

The assistance doesn’t have to end when they graduate.

“Once they qualify for the work program, they are also eligible for assistance with school, with some qualifiers, like a two year or less program and something that is in an in-demand field,” McEvers said. “So, this year we have an individual going to lineman’s school and the WIOA program is funding that and even helping him with transportation.”

There are three others who are interested in HVAC, law enforcement and truck driving school, all three are in-demand fields at the moment and therefore eligible for assistance.

McEvers thinks it is an all-around great program for the kids.

“This is a great program for so many reasons,” he said. “It keeps them busy in the summer, offers them some structure – a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and, whether they realize it or not, they’re learning valuable skills and work ethics.”