Summer opportunities for Boston teens

Yawu Miller

Last summer Tayla Bloom worked in a day care center in West Roxbury. This year, the Latin Academy sophomore wants a job in a supermarket or a health center.

“I liked the job I had last year,” she said. “I learned patience. It’s hard work working with kids.”

Monday, Bloom was a step closer to her dream summer job when she attended Action for Boston Community Development’s job fair. Hundreds of students turned out for the fair, where they were given applications for the anti-poverty agency’s summer job program.

Every year ABCD uses a combination of state funding for summer jobs and funding from corporations and foundations to help provide employment opportunities at more than 250 local nonprofits.

Last year, more than 4,000 people aged 14 to 21 applied for 1,100 jobs made available by ABCD. ABCD Director Bob Coard says the agency is hoping to secure the more than $1 million needed to provide the same number of jobs this summer.

“This year, we don’t know how much we’ll get,” he said.

Last week, Coard and others from ABCD lobbied at the State House for summer jobs funding. Last year, the Legislature appropriated $4 million for summer jobs. Half of those funds went to the city of Boston and $600,000 of Boston’s funds went to ABCD.

Mayor Thomas Menino, who attended Monday’s job fair, has been a strong advocate for summer jobs and frequently appeals to Boston businesses to hire local teens.

Not all teen jobs come through official channels. At the ABCD job fair, William Mullen, a recruiter with Shaw’s Supermarkets, was taking applications from teens. Mullen says 25 percent of the 2,000 employees working for Shaw’s are teenagers.

“We get a lot of applicants,” he commented. “But kids who come to programs like this are motivated.”

Surveying the room, Coard said the summer jobs the teens are securing through ABCD will give many of them a jumpstart on their career.

“One of these people will end up a US senator one day,” he said. “Who can tell?”