A little over a year ago, I was interviewed for the Youth Employment Service (YES) Summer Jobs Program. At the time, I was a fourteen-year-old without any previous job experience or familiarity with the work environment. Now, thanks to the YES program, I am a fifteen-year-old with the job experience, resumé, and knowledge to find my way into private employment.
To better understand the role of YES in the community, I decided to turn the tables and interview Cait Lawrence, the cheerful YES program leader who interviewed me a year prior. Lawrence has worked with YES for about five years, starting as a program assistant. One of their core responsibilities for the Summer Jobs Program is to guide YES teens through getting on payroll and make sure all teens get their paychecks. During last summer’s payroll session, I was struck by their contagious enthusiasm, even amidst the monotony of paperwork.
YES runs three major programs to empower young people in our area: YES Connect, the YES Summer Jobs Program, and the Ithaca Youth Council Ambassadors. YES Connect is a year-round program that helps teens ages fourteen to twenty-one in Tompkins County build the skills they need to find and keep a job. As Lawrence describes, “When it comes to the world of work, and you’re first getting started, you don’t know what you don’t know.” YES staff members coach young people one-on-one through creating a resume, finding employment opportunities that will welcome first-time workers their age, and the job application process. “It’s always especially wonderful when a teen has worked really hard and maybe applied to a couple of different places and didn’t get those jobs, but kept persisting … When they get that job, it’s like ‘Yes! Ring the bell! This is why we do it,’” Lawrence explained, showing me the YES bell, which sounds throughout the workplace every time a teen gets a job.
The YES Summer Jobs Program provides about 170 teens with subsidized employment at fifteen dollars per hour with employers and organizations in the community, ranging from camps to farms to retail stores. Placements are limited, and priority is given to those younger than sixteen and first-time workers. Teens work up to 120 hours throughout the summer, usually twenty hours per week for six weeks. All positions are entry-level and the applicant’s preference of workplace and position is taken into account for placement.
Beyond providing employment, the YES Summer Jobs Program also offers ongoing support. Each teen in the YES Summer Jobs Program is assigned a YES Representative who visits them at work at least once a week to talk them through any challenges they are facing. Participants in the program attend a YES Orientation and at least two hours of paid YES workshops that introduce them to workplace etiquette, sexual harassment and discrimination laws, personal finance, and more. YES teens are also required to complete two self-evaluations and an end-of-job reflection. According to Lawrence, “The people that work at YES so deeply care about the teens in this community and will support any teen that applies to the best of our ability.” I felt that I could rely on this support and care throughout my job last summer, and it meant a lot to me.
Lawrence emphasized that in addition to providing work and pay, the YES programs can also help young people to identify their strengths and feel proud of their work. “For some teens school isn’t their jam, and we want to let them know that work can be their jam,” they explained. Part-time employment as a teenager can be a valuable experience, helping teens grow their skills and meet new people, and opening doors for future opportunities. It can also grant teens some financial independence from their families. As Lawrence puts it, “The earlier you start work the earlier you can start to determine types of work that you’re interested in and the skills that you’re good at. It’s also valuable to learn what you’re not interested in and what is not necessarily your strength.”
However, employment isn’t for everyone, especially those with jam-packed schedules. “Make sure before you go out and find a job that you know what you’re signing up for. Know that it’s a commitment and you’ll get a lot out of it, but you have to put the time in as well,” Lawrence advises. Ultimately, it depends on the individual.
Even for teenagers with sufficient time in their schedule, various factors can serve as barriers to employment. Age is the most common barrier for young people, especially fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, who, while legally allowed to work, face restrictions on the hours they can work and the things they can do at work. Many businesses prefer to hire older teenagers and adults than have to accommodate these restrictions. Few employers are open to those without previous job experience either, so without the help of subsidized employment from YES, it can be hard to enter the workforce. Transportation, especially for those in rural areas, can also be a hurdle, despite the new FreeRide program which makes TCAT free for all under eighteen years old. Factors of structural inequality, like racism, ableism, and transphobia, also play a role in barring some young people from getting a job.
While YES is able to help overcome these barriers by providing subsidized employment through the YES Summer Jobs Program, only a fraction of applicants can be served in this way. Lawrence emphasized that the YES team wishes more funding and resources were available to serve more teens, but that, “If we can’t serve you through the Summer Jobs Program because you’re ineligible or whatever, it doesn’t necessarily end there. We will support any teen that applies to the best of our ability … we’ll meet you where you’re at and we’ll support you to help you reach your goals. That’s what we do.”
“The people that work at YES so deeply care about the teens in this community and will support any teen that applies to the best of our ability,”
The third program YES runs is the Ithaca Youth Council Ambassadors program, a civic education and leadership program for youth. It gives a formal voice to the youth of Tompkins County, as the high-school-aged Ithaca Youth Council Ambassadors communicate with local policymakers, especially the Common Council. Receiving input from the youth in their community, the Ambassadors address the issues that matter to them. This past year, they wanted to work on mental health initiatives and created a booklet available around IHS called 10 Ways to Support a Friend’s Mental Health. Lawrence described being able to work closely with some of the same young leaders for years as one of their favorite parts of the job: “Working with Youth Council Ambassadors and working with this population makes me want to pay closer attention to [political issues] because I am so invested in the teens that we serve.”
In Lawrence’s words, the programs YES offers can serve as “a jumping off point to whatever’s next, whether it’s joining the workforce or going off to college or whatever the case may be.” For me, my experience not only set me up for my summer job this year, but was also transformative in the way that I see the world around me and understand what it means to hold a job. Working for the Durland Alternatives Library’s Prisoner Express program, I corresponded with and transcribed correspondence of prisoners, provided general library support, and was even able to collaborate on an informational twenty-five-page packet for prisoners on the basics of climate change. I learned how to better take feedback, responsibility and initiative and grew both as a person and as an employee. While not every YES job will be as perfectly suited to a YES teen as mine was for me, I do not hesitate to recommend the YES Summer Jobs Program to other high school students. This year, the deadline for application is May 23, and you can apply at yesithaca.org/apply.
Cait Lawrence with the YES bell, rung whenever a teen gets a job. Cait Lawrence