Remember your first job? The first time you worked and earned a paycheck?
For many young people in Juneau, that happened this summer, perhaps working in the food industry, on a whale-watching boat, in a retail shop or on a fishing vessel.
For a small group, it meant improving Juneau’s trails — shoveling rocks, diverting drainage, clearing brush, sweating. On Thursday, the six-member Youth Employment in Parks crew finished building a new bridge on the Mount Jumbo Trail on Douglas Island.
Joshua Berg, 18, said hauling the materials was the hardest part of the project, but it also taught the group teamwork.
“Hauling up these huge beams for the bridge, we had to work together. Multiple crewmembers had to pick them up to hike up this very bumpy and rocky trail,” he said during an interview at the bridge site. “So we had to call out when we were slipping or about to lose grip or getting tired.”
“We had to make up for that and help them. Set it down, take a breather, and then lift it back up and get it up there,” Christopher Worrell, 18, added.
And that’s part of the goal of Youth Employment in Parks — teaching valuable job skills. The new Juneau program provides youth with their first job, while also developing things like work ethic, attendance and being on time.
“We want them to learn these things for their upcoming jobs and success,” said C. Allen Truitt, the crew’s leader and program coordinator. “Keep working, have a good attitude, show up — all those things that make you successful.”
Truitt works for Juneau’s Parks & Recreation Department at the Zach Gordon Youth Center. Youth Employment in Parks is a partnership between Zach Gordon and Southeast Alaska Independent Living, which received a grant from the state. Truitt said SAIL teaches the crew job skills, like resume building and interview techniques. Parks & Rec helps the crew identify what projects to work on and how to execute them.
The job also has some pretty cool perks. Besides the fun of working hard, the program also allows time for good old-fashioned fun. For instance, after learning how to improve a resume, the crew may get to go kayaking or watch a movie.
But most of the nine-week program is filled with fairly hard labor. Aside from the Jumbo trail bridge, the crew did work on Sandy Beach, Flume Trail, Cope Park and the Christopher Trail connecting Cope and Flume. And they still have one more week left to go.
For 15-year-old Brandon Jack, the most difficult project was on the Flume Trail.
“I thought that one was hard. There was a ton of rock just covering the trail so we got all the rock off and it took us a while,” he said.
Also, in the areas where water covered the trail, the crew diverted it to flow under.
Each crewmember gets paid $10 an hour. While a few of them have had prior work or volunteer experience, for all of them this is their first paycheck.
Zak Love, 18, will soon start his senior year at Yaakoosge Daakahidi Alternative High School. He said he’s saving the money for college.
Berg plans to “keep it in my bank account and wait to see if I want something and then buy it.” He just graduated from Juneau-Douglas High School and hopes to get into the military some day.
Worrell, who just graduated from Yaakoosge Daakahidi, said he’ll use the money toward getting his own apartment. After this job, he plans to look for another.
And he’s armed with more skills and achievements, like, “we’ve built a bridge; we can all say that now.”
“I like looking at what we did and feeling proud that we’ve built this and it’s going to last a while, and I’ll come back some other time and see that it’s still here,” Worrell said.
• Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneauempire.com.
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