The board is looking for corporate donations to augment state and federal youth employment funding and for companies to volunteer to as job sites where they would train and supervise workers paid through the program.
At the Regional Employment Board summer bobs kick-off campaign press conference Tuesday, J. William Ward, president and CEO, Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, left, waits to speak along with H. Edgar Alejandro, senior analyst, economic and community development with Western Massachusetts Electric, center, and Peter Clark, WMECO president.SPRINGFIELD – Without the youth employment programs offered by the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, Maria L. Santiago of Springfield figures shed still be stuck hanging around the house.
“I didn’t have any kind of experience or training,” Santiago, 20, and the mother of a 3-year-old. “I didn’t know how to dress properly and present myself at an interview.”
Now she has a job in the fuel assistance offices of the New England Farm Workers Council, a GED and she’ll start classes at Springfield Technical Community College in the fall.
The Regional Employment Board kicked off its annual summer jobs push Wednesday morning with a news conference at the Western New England Electric Co. offices in the Springfield Technical Community College Technology Park.
The board is looking for corporate donations to augment state and federal youth employment funding and for companies to volunteer to as job sites where they would train and supervise workers paid through the program.
WMECO President and CEO Peter J. Clark announced a $5,000 donation to the program.
This year, the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County will receive $780,00 in state Youthworks funding that is enough for 400 summer jobs, said Christine Abramowitz, director of planing for the REB. Last year, the agency received $1 million from the state.
The board will has also received $1.3 million in federal Workforce Investment funding which is used for year-round programs like the one Santiago attended as well as about 240 summer jobs. Last year it was $1.5 million.
The Franklin Hampshire Regional Employment Board has received $37,000 in state funding for 19 summer jobs in Northampton, said James E. Parcells director of planning and youth programs. The Franklin Hampshire Regional Employment Board received $70,000 in federal money, or enough for about 40 jobs. The is the first time the Franklin Hampshire Regional Employment Board has gotten state money in some time. It’s federal program 65 jobs with about $150,000 in federal money last year.
Participants make $8 to $9 an hour and work 20 to 30 hours a week over six weeks.
“Well the economy is still not good out here,” Parcells said. “But it is better than it was. There is more opportunity for people to be employed. That includes young people.”
Young people ages 16 to 19 had an unemployment rate of 15.5 percent statewide in 2011. That was more than twice the statewide average for all ages of 7.3 percent and higher than the unemployment rate of any other age group, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Hampden employment board president J. William Ward, said that when teens have jobs they tend to do better in the working world later on in life.
Thomas M. Crochiere said, vice president of Collins-Crochiere Construction Services, said his full-time employees look forward to teaching the summer workers he hosts through the Regional Employment Board. The teen employees mow lawns, paint, sweep out warehouses and do other entry -level jobs at its facility in Chicopee.
“A day’s work is a great experience,” Crochiere said. “A week’s work is even better.”