{"id":27849,"date":"2017-01-30T17:45:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T01:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/young-people-to-train-in-truck-serving-coffee-smoothies\/"},"modified":"2017-01-30T17:45:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T01:45:39","slug":"young-people-to-train-in-truck-serving-coffee-smoothies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/young-people-to-train-in-truck-serving-coffee-smoothies\/","title":{"rendered":"Young people to train in truck serving coffee, smoothies"},"content":{"rendered":"

SITKA —<\/strong> Youth Advocates of Sitka students will soon be peddling smoothies and coffee as a way to gain real life work experience.<\/p>\n

A food truck, called Latitude 57, will be a youth-run business, and is set to open shortly, YAS Assistant Director Jessica Clark told Sitka Chamber members at a luncheon in January.<\/p>\n

“We’re shooting for this summer,” she said.<\/p>\n

Trainers will work one-on-one with the teens to develop interpersonal skills, time management, customer service and money handling skills, Clark said.<\/p>\n

“Some youths are going to need a little extra support,” she said.<\/p>\n

The youths will earn vocational credit as well as a stipend for working on the cart, reported the Sitka Sentinel.<\/p>\n

The idea for the smoothie and coffee truck came during an entrepreneurial class at Pacific High School, where YAS and teens talked about what it takes to run a business, she said. Money from the Alaska Mental Health Trust helped buy the truck.<\/p>\n

It will be part of the non-profit mental health agency’s newer employment program, which helps teens learn how to find and secure employment, set career goals and even connect them with businesses in the community.<\/p>\n

This is the third year of the employment program. YAS is still building it and getting it established, Clark said.<\/p>\n

A pre-employment life skills class covers everything from cover letters to job interview attire.<\/p>\n

“If you’re going to go on a fishing boat, don’t go in your three-piece suit,” Clark said as an example of a life skills lesson.<\/p>\n

The classes also cover skills that are important to business owners here, she said.<\/p>\n

Two years ago YAS sent out a survey to 70 business owners with two general questions: What skills are you looking for? Which skills are commonly lacking in entry-level candidates?<\/p>\n

Fifty-five businesses responded and the results for both were strikingly similar, Clark said. Employers want workers who are punctual, reliable, have a strong work ethic and are able to follow directions.<\/p>\n

“This is what the business world is looking for in Sitka,” she said. “When we developed our life skills class that’s what we focused on.”<\/p>\n

The program targets youths ages 14 to 21 who have a barrier to gaining and maintaining employment.<\/p>\n

YAS also runs the Hanson House, a residential treatment center for kids ages 10-18; therapeutic foster care for kids ages 4-21 to help those who are dealing with trauma; and the Family Resource Center, where the life skills classes are held, and which is available as a safe space used for outreach and prevention.<\/p>\n

The non-profit also has community-based programs and partnerships with other organizations such as 4-H, the Sitka Sound Science Center and the Sitka Fine Arts Camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SITKA — Youth Advocates of Sitka students will soon be peddling smoothies and coffee as a way to gain real life work experience. A food truck, called Latitude 57, will be a youth-run business<\/a>, and is set to open shortly, YAS Assistant Director Jessica Clark told Sitka Chamber members at a luncheon in January. “We’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":27850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-27849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27849"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}