By Vernon Hill, GCC high school manager
Goodman Community Center’s high school TEENworks program provides an opportunity for students to learn different job skills that will help them be successful in the future when working. TEENworks offers an eight-week summer program for 60 participants in ninth through 12th grade to learn about the program while taking classes that include skills such as culinary, gardening, biking, fishing, Google classroom, banking and many others to be successful. Each participant gets paid for their time, which is usually 12 hours per week.
After the summer program, TEENworks allows the students to continue to participate in the program and continue to pick up shifts working with the GCC hospitality team catering events like weddings, banquets or parties. The TEENworks students usually work back of house or front of house. BOH duties include prepping and cooking food. The FOH duties include serving food and clearing tables.
We have included many other job duties for TEENworks students this winter, such as program support — which includes helping wherever is needed within the program — cooking in the kitchen, cleaning rooms and other tasks that may need attention. Students are scheduled upon their availability and the number of shifts available for the event. During the school year the 14- and 15-year-old students are scheduled from 4-7 p.m. during the week and up until 7 p.m. on weekends. The 16- to 18-year-old students can work up until 11 p.m. every day.
Goodman also helps with career development. During some of the summer sessions and program-support shifts, we work on helping students with homework and talk to them about career plans and career goals. There are one-on-one meetings to discuss any issues or things to work on.
Although not every participant stays after the summer program for several reasons, the program is at a maximum number of TEENworks students. We have been able to schedule each student to two or three shifts per week. Some students do more shifts because of their availability. We continue to work with student-athletes to get them shifts.
The hospitality team is a big part of the TEENworks success. Collaborating to learn the ins and outs of catering has been a great opportunity. The hospitality team has been helpful teaching the students how to be successful.
TEENworks enrollment for summer 2025 is going to open soon. Registration is limited to 60, but Goodman is working on a plan to accept more students.
For more information about TEENworks contact:
Ben Fehlen
Assistant Director of Youth & Career Development
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