New Haven Independent

Tyler is one of 23 teens who will participate in the Manage Your Future Youth Employment Program, run by the Community Action Agency of New Haven (CAANH). The teens and some of their elected officials gathered at CAA’s Whalley Avenue home Monday night to chart the summer ahead, and share some words of advice.

Starting next week, these 14- to 18-year olds will work 25 hours a week for minimum wage at summer jobs matched to their interests. They will also attend mandatory workshops topics ranging from workplace attire to financial management.

Central to the program is a requirement that participants deposit a minimum of $20 a week into a custodial savings account. At the end of the summer, savings of up to $500 will be matched dollar for dollar if used for educational purposes.

Program Director Sandra McKinnie, a New Haven native, took over CAANH’s Financial Asset Development Program this October after 15 years of community work. She aims to transform the youth summer program into one centered around parental involvement. “I’m not your mom,” she told the kids, “but be careful — I know your mothers, and you know I’ll be talking with them”

After reviewing program information and expectations with the families, McKinnie (at left in photo, with Sate Rep. William Dyson, State Sen. Toni Harp, and CAANH CEO and President Amos Smith) turned the floor over to the keynote speakers.

Dyson told his audience about the time 25 years ago that his son, recently graduated from high school, asked for money for an overcoat while holding a brand new boom box on his shoulder. Dyson’s response to his son’s request: “Wear the box.”

“You’d better pick out your priorities and figure out what’s most important to you,” he told the kids in the room. “There are a lot of people who love you. Don’t be about the business of disappointing them.”

Harp echoed Dyson’s words, boiling them down to their essence: “Listen to your mother.” Stanley Welch, from U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s office, framed his message to the kids in five words: “Learn so you can earn.”

“As a community agency we have to reach out,” McKinnie said after the meeting adjourned. “That’s why I was so adamant that I want the parents involved on day one.” She gestured to the roomful of kids and parents, dining on ziti and meatballs after the mandatory orientation had concluded. “That’s what you see today — every parent showed up.”

McKinnie’s commitment to the young people in her program, like 16-year-old Raphael Chestnut (pictured with his mother, Joanne Williams), will extend past Aug. 22, when they sign off of work. “I’m going to shadow them straight to college,” she said. “If I can help carry them through, a batch at a time, I will have impacted my community, and my life will not have been in vain.”

Smith said that as of an audit conducted last month and presented to the Board of Directors this month, the once corruption-plagued CAANC was given a clean evaluation, known as an unqualified opinion. Smith said the organization has cut the operating deficit without resorting to lay-offs, and that the only bad debt left on the books is historical debt.

“This is a community foundation,” Smith said. “That’s what people in the past forgot. They made it about the board, or about certain members of the staff. But the people here now have a commitment to serve. We are doing exactly what we were charged to do.”