New summer program offers teens workplace experience

Press release from The Cindy Platt Boys & Girls Club of Transylvania County: 

The Cindy Platt Boys & Girls Club is operating an internship program for its teenagers this summer that sends them out into the community to work alongside grownups doing real jobs.

“The whole idea is to give them an experiential learning opportunity,” said the club’s teen services director, Travis Hayes, “to give them the chance to use their analytical skills and reflections to apply ideas gained in a workplace to their classroom learning.”

That, he says, will better equip them to someday pick a field of interest and make a success.

It’s a modest start this summer – there are just six girls and one boy enrolled – but Hayes is optimistic the program will grow. “They seem enthusiastic about it already,” he said one day last week, the second week of the five-week schedule.

Every Tuesday morning the teens are transported to five different places that have agreed to partner with the club in the program. They work from 10 to noon. The assignments:

Transylvania County Parks and Recreation Department – Tiara Griffin and Dimaiah Bradley.

Brevard College Athletics Department – Kierra Riddle.

Pisgah Coffee Roasters – Elia Chavez and Jahniya Gash.

D.D. Bulwinkel’s – Larissa Reese

Brevard Music Center – Nathaniel Bowman

Though the internships are unpaid, the club asks supervising adults to steer the teens clear of menial, repetitive tasks and into work that may provide a chance at professional development and getting experience directly related to career goals or fields of interest.

Hints of that are already surfacing. As Larissa Reese was re-labeling flip-flops for a 40 percent reduction at D.D. Bulwinkel’s new store on East Main Street last week, she remarked how much more interesting that retail environment was than another part-time experience she had. “It’s way better than making pizzas!” she laughed.

At the same time, Elia Chavez and Jahniya Gash were sampling two ways of brewing Brazilian coffee at Pisgah Coffee Roasters on the Asheville Highway in Pisgah Forest so they could explain the difference to customers. “They’re learning how to be a barista,” said supervisor Beverly Spicknall. “It’s serious business,” agreed the girls as they sipped.

Hayes, who operates the club’s teen center on Nicholson Creek Road just outside of downtown Brevard, developed the program by enlisting local businesses and organizations. “I tried to get a variety of different types,” he said. He quickly received commitments from seven, five of which signed up for this first year.

“The feedback from the kids has been overall positive,” said Hayes.

The internships are just the newest of the activities and opportunities the club offers each year in its summer program, conducted at the Teen Center and at the main clubhouse campus on Gallimore Road in Brevard. It has more than 300 children enrolled in all sorts of activities, from gardening and day trips fishing, hiking and swimming to a wide variety of lessons, games and crafts in the two clubhouses.

“The internships program is a good example of what we try to accomplish with all our programs,” said club Executive Director Candice Walsh. “That is to prepare our members to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.”

The club, named for its founder, Cindy Platt, who was a long-time supporter and president of its board of directors, gets most of its money for operations from special events, donations and grants, with the lion’s share coming from local individuals, churches, organizations and businesses.

You can support the club by donating on-line at its website, bgctransylvania.org, or by mail to P.O. Box 1360, Brevard.