Summer youth workers in play at Lynn YMCA

LYNN – She likes dancing and cheerleading, but when Angele Anderson heard about city job opportunities for teenagers, she decided to make work part of her summer routine.Anderson has spent mornings and early afternoons since July 6 at the Lynn YMCA helping children enrolled in summer programs enjoy injury-free fun. The English High junior is no stranger to the YMCA – during the winter she volunteered to work with kids after school.”I like seeing how they learn,” she said.Anderson is one of 158 Lynn teenagers participating in city jobs programs this summer, and she is one of 19 summer youth workers helping run YMCA programs.”If we didn’t have them, there would be no way we would be able to run the program,” said YMCA senior program director Amy Croce.Enrollment in the Neptune Boulevard facility’s youth programs jumps from 350 students during the school year to 500 during the summer with parents looking for ways to keep children busy once schools close.Anderson spent noontime Thursday helping Kervina Joseph, 6, and her friends draw chalk pictures on a concrete play area wall. Joseph drew an elephant with Anderson’s help and turned to the teenager and said, “She’s so special.”Several feet away, English junior Osayi Ayinla supervised a basketball game called “Knockout” for about 20 children. Having fun with his 4-year-old sister prompted Ayinla to sign up in the spring for his summer job. An aspiring singer, he hopes to showcase his skills sometime this summer for the YMCA kids.City community development youth services coordinator John Kasian supervises hiring teenage workers, and the North Shore Workforce Investment Board’s First Jobs program also gets teens jobs with the goal of giving them work skills. Croce said five YMCA summer youth workers are First Jobs hires.”We couldn’t pull this off without the city and First Jobs,” said Lynn YMCA branch executive director Audrey Jimenez.Kasian said 76 teen workers are employed for the summer in city jobs ranging from parks and sidewalk cleanups to assisting in city offices. Eighty-two teens work summer jobs in 28 businesses and nonprofit organizations like the YMCA.Four teens employed by Commercial Street manufacturer ERC Wiping Products represent the latest hires in ERC’s tradition of working with the city to give teenagers initial employment experience.Croce said the Lynn YMCA’s summer workers are teens who want to do more than earn a warm-weather paycheck.”They have a hunger to make a difference,” she said.