BOSTON, Mass. — If you have a teenager looking for a summer job, the Anti-poverty agency, ABCD, wants to hear from them. They have a program that will pay your child more than $1,700, but they better hurry because slots for the one thousand positions are filling up fast.
17-year-old Kevin Williams loves sneakers and he has a pretty healthy collection at his Dorchester home. “Having a job now, I could pay for my own stuff. I really like shoes, so I wouldn’t have to bug my mom, ‘oh could you buy these,’” he said.
Kevin, who is in his junior year of high school, has money in his pocket after working last summer as a youth mentor at Up Academy as part of Boston’s ABCD SummerWorks Program. The program is open to any Boston resident between ages 14-to-21 and from low income families. They’re guaranteed 20 hours a week at minimum wage, working for a non-profit organization. According to ABCD, during 2021, SummerWorks employed 396 youth, provided 15,298 hours of services to 66 community nonprofit partner worksites and 100% of youth completed their assignments. The president and CEO of ABCD calls it a real investment with a long term payoff. “They learn how to work, how to be supervised, how to grow. They get into the idea that I can do this. I can graduate from high school, I can go to college. I can become a Tesla mechanic. It’s all about the first job,” said John Drew.
