What another great summer! DanversCARES has completed our third year of the Summer Jobs Program. In partnership with Danvers Community Access Television and the Danvers Recreation Department, and the Danvers YMCA and funded by the F1rst Jobs grant awarded by the North Shore Workforce Investment Board we hired teens to work at the Rec Department’s Falcon Fun Camp as counselors, DCAT as program assistants, and the Danvers YMCA as counselors at their Adventure Camp. In addition to their daily responsibilities, they were also challenged to create projects that represented the mission of DanversCARES in their workplace.
The Falcons Fun Camp counselors chose to invent new games that challenge campers to learn new physical exercises they can do without equipment:

And they created a relay race that incorporated age-appropriate academic trivia to help reduce summer learning loss:

Our DCAT program assistant, Adrienne Ruest created, wrote, produced, and directed her own short documentary called “Teenage Depression” about the mental health challenges teens in may face and some positive coping strategies that can help:

In addition to all of their work on site, each youth attended four career readiness seminars hosted by the North Shore Youth Career Center, where they learned skills such as how to create a resume, interview skills and how to meet professional expectations. These important skills matched with the work and leadership experience they all had this summer have prepared them to take on more and more challenges as they reach adulthood.
DanversCARES is so proud of our summer job program participants this year, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for next summer!