GCC’s TEENworks program is about more than teaching work skills — it’s also so they can follow their dreams

By August Halbach, GCC digital marketing specialist

When I asked East High School freshman Samariah Brown what she wanted to do when she is grown up, she was helping Goodman Community Center TEENworks manager Vernon Hill and coordinator Olivia Morgan pack Hill’s youth basketball league equipment bags. She answered quickly and with a confident smile, “I want to be a NICU nurse.”

What does a high school employment program like TEENworks, with a central pillar of catering, kitchen preparation and youth leadership and role modeling, offer a student down the path to be a neonatal intensive care unit nurse? All it takes is a few hours spent with TEENworks youth to see what brings students like Brown back to GCC year after year.

Gen Z embraces teen employment

Teen employment in the U.S. had been relatively low since peaking in the 1970s and ’80s. Job automation and hiring demographic shifts decreased the number of entry-level jobs once prioritized by teens. But something shifted in 2023. The isolation period of the coronavirus pandemic had begun to close. Starting wages were rising. Hiring demand was up. Teens were gravitating toward jobs in fast food, retail, hospitality and catering instead of grocery and video store gigs.

Dr. Lynea Lavoy, lead faculty at Madison College’s hospitality program, partners with the TEENworks program. She helped arrange a recent tour of both the college and Embassy Suites’ kitchen and hotel.

“Hospitality is a great place for young people to start working,” Lavoy said. “It’s an industry where connections really matter, and it’s impressive to work with a program that wants to introduce those connections so early.”

The teens don’t want to leave

Through multiple conversations with youth and staff from TEENworks and GCC, a few things became abundantly clear about the youth employment program. First, “they know they can make more money at McDonald’s” could be considered a catchphrase around TEENworks. Yes, some of the youth do take advantage of more traditional jobs like the mall, fast food and retailers like Walmart — which likely pay more than the $11 minimum teen wage at GCC — but it’s not a secret and it’s not discouraged.

But, what TEENworks offers is far more than money and high school extra credits. TEENworks is a space where teens are allowed to be themselves in every flaw and power imaginable, and receive the support and flexibility that comes with trusting adult relationships. This summer’s plan is an example of TEENworks’ eagerness to offer teens more.

“We have a pretty big group of kids who don’t want to leave,” laughed Catie Tollefson, GCC’s vice president of mission and programs. “Some of these teens are on their third summer with us. They’ve gotten their ServSafe. They’ve gotten CPR trained. And they still want to come back again this summer. It’s our job to find new opportunities for them.”

The summer of 2026 will have those youth earning a refereeing certificate, which makes them eligible to be referees for youth leagues, a position that is underfilled in Madison. Teens already spend time practicing these skills with SPARK, GCC childcare’s physical activity program, and the new Small Ball basketball sessions for elementary-age youth. A referee certificate would open doors for the teens within an already existing framework provided by the center.

It’s about the ones who are here

Part of what makes TEENworks successful is the willingness to adapt to what is being offered each year and still be accepting of the teens as individuals. Since its inception in 2011, TEENworks has had a 20-hour per week curriculum that every participant is required to complete: a get-to-know-you interview, resume building, goal setting and skill training.

For about four years, everyone’s skill training was in the kitchen learning knife techniques, cleanup and prep. The basics. A sports and youth development track was added, providing an equitable, low-cost opportunity for youth to participate in sports. It used GCC teens to run sports clinics.

What felt like a height of offerings began to slow when youth sports enrollment fell as a result of COVID-19’s isolation period. TEENworks, like everything else, was required to adapt.

To continue offering teens the activities, shifts and field trips they had come to expect from TEENworks, the two employment tracks had to come back together.

“We want a teen to be able to start in the kitchen and ask us, ‘Hey, can I try working in the classrooms or tutoring with START?’” Tollefson explained.

START is Goodman’s literacy tutoring initiative.

Explore, embrace, succeed

TEENworks’ readiness to invest in teens living in their now is a big element of its success.

Take a current sophomore affectionately known as C-Ball (full name Christian Barfield). Barfield is the kind of person who playfully acknowledges a friend or trusted adult entering the room. He’s joyous and confident but becomes bashful when talking about himself.

Barfield is a SPARK leader, a role model to children in childcare and middle school programs. He’s also in command when he’s working back-of-house during catering events.

“I don’t do front-of-house, though,” Barfield admitted.

Barfield has personally embraced the program in big ways, a testament to the relationships TEENworks youth are encouraged to build with staff. Barfield’s big and friendly energy is surprising considering what he views as his biggest success.

“I used to be really angry all (the)time,” Barfield said. “But (at Goodman) I’ve learned when to take a step back or when to breathe. I can handle a lot of stuff now.”

Along with supporting teens’ current needs, TEENworks staff pays attention to who the teens want to be and takes the steps to get them there.

More successes

Julian Sanchez, another previous TEENworks participant and current cold station cook at Michelin Guide-recommended restaurant Valhalla in Chicago, learned his core kitchen skills in TEENworks.

Starting the program as an incoming freshman, Sanchez was able to graduate a year early from high school in 2023 to attend New York’s Culinary Institute of America with help from the extra credits he received in the program.

“(Staff) did whatever they could to help me get where I wanted to go,” Sanchez said. “They helped me start and market a GoFundMe to help pay for school. Staff will figure out how to make what (participants) want (to) happen, even if it didn’t exist before.”

TEENworks staff hope teens will be able to feel confident advocating for what they want, even if it feels incredibly big and far away. Presenting teens with a variety of experiences and opportunities for input helps achieve this.

TEENworks recent partnership with Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream is a great example. Participants worked with Chocolate Shoppe’s Dominic Martin and his training and equipment team starting in 2024.

“The teens got to make the first batch of (the 2025 and 2026) fan-voted flavors and took a tour of the equipment and the facility,” Martin said.

The collaboration with Chocolate Shoppe leans on the final core piece of TEENworks programming: youth voice.

Give teens a say

“When you give youth a say in their programming, when you make their opinion heard, that’s when they really start buying into whatever you’re doing,” TEENworks coordinator Anna Heard said. “Across all the shifts, the most successful ones are the ones that follow what the teens want.”

Youth Voice Council is where Heard’s philosophy shines. YVC is a small, dedicated group of participants who design, execute and evaluate projects for TEENworks and the rest of GCC’s youth programming with its strategy team and TEENworks staff as guides. Each project tackles an issue noted by the group and their peers on ways the program could improve, like a snack distribution and rating system for LOFT or community-building opportunities for TEENworks.

They’ve also recently been involved with the redesign of GCC’s playground, which involved YVC receiving design input and ideas from the kids in Goodman’s childcare.

YVC acts on their collective responsibility with great care.

“The original group set boundaries and rules for themselves at the beginning of the year,” Heard recounted. “Then they got a new member. And after one session, the more experienced teens came to us and said, ‘we have to reestablish our ground rules.’ They feel very responsible for that space.”

Ultimately, that’s the lesson learned over the last 15 years of TEENworks. Youth employment and mentorship programs that want to break the mold must allow the opinions, dreams and authentic selves — flaws and all — to exist freely in a space, treating participants like developing adults — like people who should be believed and believed in.

Asked about his future, Barfield responded, “I want to be four things. Football. Firefighter. NASCAR …”

After a pause, he finished. “What my sister is, a doctor.”