2,500 teens employed through SummerWorks program
A record 2,500 teens have been connected to a part-time job this summer, Mayor Greg Fischer announced at a press conference Tuesday.
The SummerWorks program is a Louisville-based initiative that looks to partner with local employers to get more youths to work during the summer break. Companies such as Norton Healthcare, Thornton's and Kroger participated in the program this year.
Fischer said the program has been wildly successful in Louisville, growing from 200 employed youths when he first began the program in 2011. Local partners employed more than 400 additional youths this year compared with last.
"It goes way beyond earning a paycheck," he said. "My summer job really set the tone for my career and the people I met along the way really helped me."
The city received a $500,000 grant from Kentucky's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to specifically target youth from low-income families. Two-hundred kids were placed with summer jobs through the TANF funding. Many of the youths employed through the program work about 30 hours per week for seven weeks.
The grant also will go toward tracking the progress of youths from low-income families and will look at whether a summer job made a measurable distance in their lives, said Lt. Governor Crit Luallen. Tuesday's conference was held at the Kroger on 28th and Broadway and roughly two dozen Louisville youth stood behind the mayor in their work uniforms.
JP Morgan Chase representative Paul
Reporter Roberto Roldan can be reached at (502) 582-4649. Follow him on twitter at @ByRobertoR.