Stimulating the economy

Desiree Haehle said she would probably be at home watching TV and sleeping if she weren't involved in the summer work skills program.

Thanks to the stimulus package, Haehle, who will be a senior at Sebring High School this year, is making money working in a shop.

The region, which includes Highlands, Hardee and DeSoto counties, has received a little more than $1.2 million from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

A total of $500,000 of federal stimulus money is being used for youth with $358,000 targeted for adults and $379,512 for dislocated workers, according to Roger Hood, president/CEO of Heartland Workforce.

There are 18 students ages 14-18 from Lake Placid and Sebring participating in a six-week program. They work four days a week and are paid $500 every two weeks.

The teens are building chairs, ottomans and side tables with the Green Dragon Chair Co., a student-run business that started at Lake Placid High School in 2003.

John Rousch, who is running the program, explained that the kids are broken up into crews. One crew might be working on the router, but if there is nothing to be done on that machine, because the parts aren't ready yet, the kids need to go ahead on their own and make some parts that need to be routed or do something else.

"Those are the types of skills that we want kids to learn," Rousch said. "Because as an employer, you want somebody who can show initiative and get the job done. That's what we are trying to do. That's the major goal of this program is to help young people understand what it takes to be an effective worker - a value-added worker - rather than someone just collecting a paycheck."

Rousch said Thursday he has been impressed with how much the kids have learned in a short period of time. He told them to think about where they were when they came in for the first time on June 15.

"Ninety percent of you had no idea what any of these machines did, didn't know how to operate any of them," Rousch said. "Now they are skilled enough that they can go operate them without supervision and operate them safely and efficiently and work as a team. That's phenomenal."

Rousch said he has the students complete a skill assessment that includes 16 items: practices punctuality, complies with attendance, uses good judgment and works unsupervised.

"You take a kid that has been in the program and a kid that hasn't been, the one that hasn't been is going to be at a real disadvantage to the one who has because they can point to those 16 things," he said. "I get calls for references all the time from kids I had at school. I pull this (assessment) out because I use this during the year."

"What I have the kids do is I say 'you rate yourself where you think you are here; I'll rate you where I think you are' and then we have a discussion about where they really are," he said. "The other thing I do is I also have them identify where you were when you first came in and where are you now. On average I'd say there has been about a 50 to 60 percent gain in every one of these areas when the kids have gone through the program."

Haehle said she was "completely terrified" before starting the program. She said she had never been in a shop and never had worked on a band saw or a table saw.

Her fears are over and her interest in construction has increased.

"I like building stuff; it's pretty cool," she said.

Haehle said she plans to change her schedule this year and take a drafting class.

Robin Cope, who will be a junior at Sebring High, has taken other vocational courses. He said the program at Lake Placid is different because he is working with others on an assembly line.

"It's a nice program and is keeping people out of trouble," Cope said.

Ed Brown is coordinating the program in Avon Park. Its 12 participants are working on construction projects for Habitat for Humanity and Highlands Hammock State Park.

Another program being run through South Florida Community College involves 100 teens and young adults ages 14-24 from Highlands County and 50 from both Hardee and DeSoto counties.

Kevin Brown, dean of the Division of Applied Sciences and Technology at SFCC, said the participants will be learning skills such as how to write a resume and how to prepare for a job interview. The older ones are scheduled for internships in local government offices and privates businesses. The younger ones will participate in community service projects.

The participants also receive a stipend. The amount, which can't be less than $100 per week, depends on the kinds of work they are involved in and an evaluation of work ethics.

Hood said the stimulus money is allowing at least 50 percent more participants to be involved than previous summer programs.

Money is for training

The stimulus money cannot be used for employers to hire more workers.

"We can't give them money for anything other than training or try to enhance skill development," Hood said.

Hood said input is still being received regarding how the money will be used to help adults and dislocated workers. He noted that individuals with disabilities and people coming out of jail are among those being targeted.

"If we didn't have this money we would not be able to do all these extra projects. Our funding has been tight for the last five years," Hood said. "In the near future we will see a greater impact than we will immediately."

Hood said he doesn't know how many jobs will be created.

"The return on investment is what skills do they obtain out of this," he added. 'I'm talking about the targeted people - the ex-offenders, the folks with disabilities, the people that are being hired and trained to learn construction work; even though construction is down right now, it is going to pick back up shortly."