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For Immediate Release Los Angeles, CA June 30, 2006 |
Press Contact: David Sommers Phone: (213) 974-1095 Fax: (213) 626-6941 |
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Funding Announcement for Summer Youth Jobs Program
The Youth Jobs program
is a partnership of cities, Workforce Investment Boards and
community agencies that work together to help at-risk kids across
the County learn and practice the skills needed to succeed in life,
through summer jobs, internships and training.
Last summer alone, this
25-year program made a real difference in the lives of over 3,300
teens throughout the County. When we learned that the funding to
sustain the program was exhausted, I worked very closely with
Supervisor Yaroslavsky to see what we could do to sustain it.
We had heard about the
serious impact on kids the loss of this program would be from all
over the County, including Mayor Villaraigosa, City of Long Beach
Mayor O’Neill, the LA City Workforce Investment Board, the City of
Long Beach Workforce Investment Board, and many others.
In the end, we took it
upon ourselves to cover it with County general funds for this
summer, and I’m so pleased that Mayor Villaraigosa has taken action
to partner with us, by augmenting our funding with City dollars.
However, our actions
today don’t solve the problem in the long run. We still have work to
do, if we are going to keep this worthy program sustained to help
kids well into the future.
We will continue to work
with Mayor Villaraigosa, Mayor O’Neill of Long Beach, all of the
Workforce Investment Boards and other key community leaders to press
the case for this program and the funding to keep it going.
We will be working very
hard to press this point at the State and federal level that summer
job programs for young people is a priority that all of us will
benefit from. ### |
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