Goodman Community Center | TEENworks
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TEENworks encourages teens to learn and practice a wide-spectrum of employment skills with adults they trust.

High school students enrolled in TEENworks have opportunities to learn from nearly all of Goodman Community Center's programs and teams — from early childhood education and START Literacy Initiative to nonprofit strategy and communications.

All TEENworks youth earn an hourly wage for their time spent with Good Works Catering, completing certifications, assisting programming for younger participants, resume building and other skilled shifts. Participants can also earn high school credit.

TEENworks also prioritizes building sincere, lasting relationships between youth and adults so every teen can feel empowered to show up authentically at GCC and out in the world every day.

Catering & Culinary Arts

Catering and teen employment go together like peanut butter and jelly.

TEENworks pairs with the chefs in GCC's in-house Good Works Community Catering to build a foundation of culinary skills in a top-tier commercial kitchen setting.

All teens enrolled in TEENworks earn their ServSafe certification and are trained in event catering. Participants also have opportunities to lead the middle school program through recipes that connect with their personal culture and history.

Youth Leadership

TEENworks engages with younger youth in preschool, elementary after school and middle school programming. Teens are offered opportunities to coach SPARK — the preschool and elementary phys ed program — lead cooking club with middle school and tutor early readers with START Literacy Initiative.

And the relationships that blossom between the teens and younger students? That's where role models are born.

Communications Skills

Strong communications skills are important for nearly all career paths. By working with GCC's communications team, teens practice visual storytelling, copy writing, information synthesis, design and other adaptable skills they can use now and build upon in the future.

Youth Voice Council

GCC Youth Voice Council provides space for teens to give feedback and guide the work of their programs from behind the scenes. Facilitated by our strategy team, teens in Youth Voice Council develop unique leadership and evaluation skills and help develop their programs in real time.

Learn more about Youth Voice Council

Get Involved

All teen employees must complete an employment training series before scheduling shifts. We typically do three trainings during the school year (fall, winter and spring) and two trainings in the summer.

There are no current trainings available, visit our high school page for other high school opportunities!

A student pours melted wax to make candles.
Students stand with a manager from Madison BCycle in front of a BCycle station. They participated in a summer internship with the business.
Three students pose on the UW Madison campus.
Students hand off preservation CSA shares to shareholders.
Three students hold some of the preserved products they prepared for the Preservation CSA.
A student smiles as he holds a chicken.
A student works in the kitchen cutting vegetables.
Students hold fishing poles on a boat.
Two students hand harvested veggies off to a representative from the Goodman food pantry.
A teen looks over his shoulder and smiles from inside the Goodman Center's professional kitchen. He is dressed in his catering uniform.

Laura Zastrow Photography

Community Thanks

As a community, we are thankful for all the effort that our student workers give every day to help run Goodman Community Center.

Support TEENworks

For more information about the TEENworks program contact:

Vernon Hill

High School Manager
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Trevor Moores

TEENworks Manager
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The Goodman Community Center's high school programs for youth grades 9-12 are made possible by a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant, the City of Madison, United Way of Dane County and the generous support of our donors. As a Community Learning Center (CLC), GCC's afterschool programs provide youth with academic and social-emotional enrichment opportunities.

We regularly evaluate the impact of our programs. Annual program reports are made available upon request.