Are you ready for your first job? Are you ready to earn money for the first time? Are you ready to get involved with our local government?
If you are, then the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) hosted by the town of Chapel Hill might be for you. SYEP gives teenagers the opportunity to work in different places doing diverse work in the local government.
I participated in the SYEP one summer ago. After the interview and the training, I was placed in the stormwater department. I worked with my supervisor who is the Community Education Coordinator.
Because of my personal interest in communication and education, one of the projects we did involved working at Culbreth Middle School’s summer school program. We taught more than 50 6-8th graders about the science of stormwater. By the end of the program, we turned a whole classroom into a creek for an immersive environment to study stormwater.
“You can also work in our library [or] be a junior counselor,” said Jackie Thompson, who is one of the managers for SYEP. “We have some employees that answer the telephone. We have some youth that work for the Orange County Department on Aging (OCDOA) and they assist with a lot of our older adult programming and services.”
SYEP is designed for youth aged 14 to 18 years old, whose families make 80 percent of the Chapel Hill area median income. The work is approximately 20 hours per week for eight weeks, about four hours per day, wages range from $11 to $12 per hour.
East students junior Andrea Wang and year Sarah Njoroge attended this program and delivered positive feedback.
“I’ve attended two years [and] I’ve been working as a summer camp counselor for two separate camps,” Wang said.
Wang started working there during the summer of 2021 right after Covid.
“[Summer youth program] means a lot to me, I just got out of the isolation for a year so it definitely made me grow that aspect of having to socially get back in the groove of that. It taught problem solving strategies and good communication skills,” Wang said.
According to Njoroge, SYEP is also a great experience for teenagers to build character and connect with society more.
“[I learned] how to be social and I talked more with other people. [I had to] make sure I am staying on task doing the right thing for people,” Njoroge said. “It was a great experience with not a lot of pressure or stress; I would recommend it to people.”
Joining the SYEP and working with adults taught me a lot, it made me feel more independent and responsible to anything I do after the working experience. When you are working with a bunch of successful people, you would be willing to be one of them.
The program is designed for youths to know more about their local community and government from an early age.
“We’re very excited about our program and we think that working with the town government exposes the youth a lot to how town government is run. It lets them see the functions of town government and they learn a lot while on the job,” Thompson said.
Another benefit they provide is for students to learn about skills they might use during work in the future.
“We do hold various workshops for them, like resume writing, how to write a cover letter…That is just to give them some experience, and it looks good on college resumes and if you’re applying for a job to see that you have some type of work experience,” Thompson said.
After applying to the program, there will be an interview and training, then the students are ready to have a different summer experience.
“We are welcoming all students from all walks of life,” Thompson said. “We want to help students to learn various job aspects and to actually give the youth something to do during the summer. It gives the youth something to do during the summer, something positive to do during the summer.”
Photo courtesy of the Summer Youth Employment Program
