YouthWorks 2001 Summer Wrap-Up

City Hall, 2nd floor Executive Conference Room

Mayor's Office of Employment Development (MOED)

In the largest summer initiative to date, MOED in conjunction with its private and corporate partners, placed 5,000 Baltimore city youth in summer jobs. Contributing to the success of this summer YouthWorks 2001 was a $949,525 Rewarding Youth Achievement grant awarded to the City from the U.S. Department of Labor.

This Thursday morning, Mayor O'Malley will be marking the official conclusion of the Summer YouthWorks 2001 celebrating the youth, businesses, educational facilities and political leaders that contributed to this highly successful initiative.

Participants representing a number of the summer youth will present profiles of their summer experiences. In addition to several important city beautification projects, youth gained valuable experience in local law offices, medical institutions and culinary arts and research facilities. Morgan State University's Manufacturing Academy and Southern High School's Biotechnology Program are among the summer programs that will be featured at this event.

YouthWorks is a stellar example of opportunities created through public-private partnerships uniting Baltimore's business and educational communities with city, state and federal resources.

This year the City of Baltimore aggressively sought funding from a variety of sources: federal grants, state resources, special city allocations and private sector contributions including businesses, foundations and personal gifts.

Collaborative funding of summer programming was especially important this year as new Workforce Investment Act (WIA) legislation prohibits the use of WIA funds in funding "stand alone" summer programs. WIA funds had previously supported approximately 90% of MOED's summer programming.

In highlighting the multiple partners involved in funding YouthWorks 2001, MOED will be thanking Verizon Foundation for its generous $35,000 contribution and publicizing the Rewarding Youth Achievement, awarded to the City by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Baltimore was among the 22 urban, rural and Native American programs awarded a total of $20,000,000 in Rewarding Youth Achievement grants from the U.S. Department of Labor. The grants are designed to increase high school graduation and college enrollment rates for youth living in economically disadvantaged areas by providing innovative programming for students who have demonstrated academic excellence.