Summer Jobs Program Helping Kids, Calhoun Co. PDF Print E-mail
By JOEL McNEECE
Cheyenne Thomas, 23, was sweeping fresh cut grass off a sidewalk on South McSweyne Street in Bruce Monday as co-workers continued to mow down the weeds in the near 100-degree heat.
Thomas, who hopes to start school at Itawamba Community College this fall to pursue a criminal justice degree, said the summer-jobs program for youth implemented in Calhoun County this summer with federal stimulus funds has been a life-saver.
“I’m trying to save for school,” Thomas said. “Every little bit helps.”
Thomas is one of five working under the supervision of Larry Collins. His crew is cleaning out ditches, keeping grass mowed, limbs picked up, anything that needs doing around the city.
ebony81.jpg“It’s mighty hot out here, but these kids have been working hard,” Collins said. “It’s taken a lot of work off the city employees and allowed them to work on other things. This has to be a great benefit to the city.”
A total of 60 youths are working around Calhoun County in the program administered by Three Rivers Planning and Development. All of the salaries for the 60 workers are coming from the $1.2 billion federal summer jobs program for youth put into place by President Barack Obama as part of the stimulus package.
“In our 27 counties with the Mississippi Partnership, we had twice as many applications as we anticipated,” said Bill Renick, director of the Mississippi Partnership Workforce Area. “There was a tremendous response in Calhoun County.”
Thomas said if not for this program she isn’t sure what she could have done this summer.
“I had to do something,” Thomas said wiping sweat from her brow. “I needed to work. This was big for me.”
Ebony Williams, who graduated from Calhoun City High School last month, is still at the school, but now she’s working with the summer-youth program earning some college money.
“I really needed to earn some extra money this summer to help with college,” Williams said while cheyenne.jpgpushing a roller back and forth over a giant orange paw print she was painting in the school parking lot. “I don’t know what I would have done had this not come along. I guess I would have just been working out for next basketball season.”
Williams signed a basketball scholarship to play for ICC next season, but said there are still a lot of other expenses that go with college she needs.
Among the 60 workers spread around Calhoun County, 10 are working for the city of Bruce, five are working for Calhoun City, another six at Calhoun City High School, one for the Town of Derma and many more.
Chancery Clerk Jess Moore is employing two in his office with their focus on “record restoration.”
Many of the land deed books in the chancery clerk’s office have severely deteriorated. Moore is using his summer-youth workers to help restore those books by placing the pages into protective sleeves.
Moore said when he paid a company to restore two previous books it cost the county more than $4,000. This restoration process is only costing the cost of the sleeves.
“It has a huge impact and helps us to get our books caught up with the computers,” Moore said. “We’re getting a lot done, that’s for sure. We stay so busy doing day-to-day work, it’s hard for us to find time to do these  important tasks.”
Summer-youth workers are also busy in the circuit clerk’s office, the Department of Human Services, Calhoun City and Vardaman libraries, and the county clean-up crew.
When the state pulled the state inmates out of the county due to the lack of a new facility, which is still in the works, workers were limited for Mickey Rodgers’ crew that picks up litter along the highways.
“They’ve really filled a gap there that has helped the county,” said Josh Miller, who is overseeing the placement of the youths in the county program.
“We’ve had great participation from a lot of kids looking to work,” Miller said. “We’ve been very pleased so far with the program.”
The workers, ages 14-24, are in their second week of the eight week program. They earn $7.25 an hour.
Renick said more than 10,000 applications were submitted throughout the region for the approximate 1,600 summer youth jobs.
“In rural America, there's not many private companies that are hiring teenagers,” Renick said. “You just don't have businesses on every corner in small-town Mississippi.”
Renick said Con. Travis Childers, a summer youth worker in the 1970s, helped solicit the applications in the region.
“Our goal was to provide these jobs to the neediest of the needy,” Renick said. “Up to 75% of the applications we received qualified for the program. We’ve had calls from people – the stories just really tug at your heartstrings. This program couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“Money hasn’t been available for a program like this in a long time,” Bruce Mayor Robert Edward Oakley said. “We’re only in the second week but this program is proving very beneficial to us and especially these kids. It gives them an opportunity to contribute to their own support, an opportunity to go to work at a time when jobs are hard to come by.”
Oakley said the crews working in Bruce are focusing on the smaller jobs that the regular city crews often struggle to get to due to time constraints.
“It’s particularly helpful now in the summer when you have more grass and clean-up problems,” Oakley said.
Calhoun City Mayor J.R. Denton echoed those sentiments.
“There are things that need to be done but you can’t afford to take your full-time people off their jobs when they’re working on water leaks and other serious concerns,” Denton said.
The Calhoun City crew, under the leadership of Perry Goodson, cleaned up the square after the recent storm, has been busy cleaning culverts and painting fire hydrants.
“Perry said they are exceptional workers, good kids,” Denton said.
A recent story in Time Magazine said the White House estimates that the stimulus money will create 125,000 jobs for low-income youths, though outside experts put the number at up to four times that.
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment for 16-to-19-year-olds is nearly 23%; that's more than double the 9.2% national unemployment rate and the highest it's been since 1992,” Time Magazine reported.
“We’re excited by the success of the program thus far,” Renick said. “We’re hoping to accomplish a lot of things. First among them is to help these kids earn some money and hopefully teach a little work ethic at the same time.”