San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announced an initiative this morning to create 7,000 jobs, internships and paid training opportunities for city youth and young adults this summer and into the school year.
As part of a public-private partnership, Summer Jobs+ 2014 hopes to connect San Francisco employers with low-income and disadvantaged youth seeking paying jobs that will give them job experience and working skills.
Last year, the jobs challenge, which is now in its third year, placed more than 6,800 young adults into jobs and internships at nearly 100 companies such as Starbucks, Old Navy and Zynga, and a dozens of nonprofits, such as Glide Memorial, the Boys and Girls Club and the Third Street Youth Center and Clinic.
More companies and organizations have committed to hiring youth this summer, including the California Academy of Sciences, Jamba Juice, Kaiser Permanente, Advent Software, Enterprise, Target and the University of California at San Francisco.
This year the initiative hopes to connect more youth to jobs in offices, the arts, computer science, retail, banking, engineering and other fields and the program has been expanded beyond the summer into the school year, pushing students to find the discipline to work while studying.
United Way of the Bay Area is one of the key supporters of the jobs program along with the city’s Department of Children Youth and their Families, Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the San Francisco Unified School District.
JP Morgan Chase has committed to contributing $200,000 to the jobs program, and more funds have been raised through sponsorships with PG&E, Citi Foundation, Bank of American, Wells Fargo and other partnerships to help subsidize internships and provide additional summer programming.
More information about participating in the summer jobs program as a youth or an employer is available at sfsummerjobs.org.
Sasha Lekach, Bay City News
