Erwin Brock has no interest in being a planner or sewer worker or even county executive when he grows up.
Erwin wants to be a movie producer.
So why is he working with New Castle County this summer?
Brock is one of nearly 200 young people working throughout the halls of government as part of the county’s Youth Employment Program.
The summer program, paid for with a variety of state and federal grants and supplemented with $50,000 of county funds, sets youths ages 14 to 21 up with summer work in a variety of disciplines throughout the government.
Community Services General Manager Anne Farley said her department went to great lengths to match employees up with jobs in their areas of interest.
For Brock, that means the county’s media center, where he’s been working alongside Media Coordinator Tom Mitten.
“If he’s representative of the kinds of kids we’ve got this summer, we’re in good shape, Mitten said.
Brock is helping Mitten maintain the county’s public information television station – Channel 22 on Comcast – and is also working on producing some video projects for the county’s website.
“It was very good to know I was going to get to get to do something I had an interest in,” said the 16-year-old digital media student at Delcastle High School. “It’s good experience and it gets you prepared for working in the field.”
The program, which stems from President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in 1965, is seen by advocates as an ideal way to keep at-risk students off the streets, while giving them invaluable professional experience in a variety of fields.
The jobs pay only minimum wage, but in the current economic climate, demand for them was higher than ever, Farley said.
“The night we had our youth employment job fair, more than 700 kids showed up,” Farley said. “We were supposed to be there until 8 p.m. and we were there until 10 p.m. and even then we had to give kids applications and tell them to come back the next night.”
Fortunately, the county was able to bring on far more workers than originally anticipated when an additional $260,295 federal stimulus money came the county’s way. Designated as a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families fund, that money is only available to youths from low-income families. In total, the program costs $407,465.
“Initially we were looking at a modest program of 75-100 youth,” Farley said. “We’re glad we were able to do more.”
