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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Summer Youth Employment at the Capitol.

Today I was pleased to attend an event at the State Capitol honoring the kids who participated in this year's Summer Youth Employment program.

This is a program that I have been happy to support and of which I think our state should be proud.

The Summer Youth Employment program was a very successful federally funded program, providing, as the name implies, jobs for youth in the summertime. Unfortunately budget cuts completely eliminated this important program.

And the loss the program was felt severely, especially in cities like New Britain. So the state decided to recreate it - as a state program.

The current Summer Youth Employment program is a jobs program for youth with a strong educational emphasis. It provides kids with opportunity, work experience, a sense of responsibility and, of course, a paycheck.

Over the past few years I have been proud to support increases in the budget for this program. But there are still kids who want to participate who are turned away. So there are still many more kids who can be given greater opportunities if we can increase the funding for the Summer Youth Employment program.