When she first began looking for a summer job, Venessa Garcia, 16, found the prospects bleak.

She submitted applications to about 15 local businesses, with no success. “They didn’t even call me back or anything,” Garcia recalled in an interview Friday.

However, the North Surry High School student’s quest for work ended happily, thanks to the Summer Youth Employment Program funded by the federal stimulus package.

Through the program, summer jobs were provided for Garcia and around 238 other young people in Surry County at 129 different work sites, including businesses, governmental agencies and non-profit organizations. They have worked 20 hours per week at minimum wage.

While those in the targeted age group of 16 to 24 have received a tax-free paycheck, the employers hiring them have benefited from free labor provided courtesy of the federal government program aimed at sparking the economy.

“Definitely for me, there have been no negatives,” said Steve Talley, owner of Talley’s Custom Frame and Gallery in downtown Mount Airy, where Garcia landed a job preparing photographs and artwork for framing.

A similar response came from another part of town at radio station WSYD, where Jonathan Lightfoot has spent the summer.

In order to return to college, Lightfoot, 21, a rising junior at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, completed his work at the station Friday, which encompassed tasks ranging from preparing bills for mailing to announcing, producing commercials and other tasks.

“He’s taken a big load off of us,” said WSYD owner Kelly Epperson. “It’s definitely been a great move having him here this summer, and I wish he wasn’t going back to school so soon.”

Like Garcia, summer employment possibilities for Lightfoot weren’t promising and had it not been for the stimulus program, “I probably would have been sitting at home doing nothing,” he admitted last week.

Instead, students such as Lightfoot and Garcia — who had never held a job before — have gained valuable experience as well as money to help with school-related expenses, clothing and other needs.

“I’ve got a bunch of money saved up from it,” said Wesley Hall, a 16-year-old student at East Surry High who began work on June 29 at Clyde Fulk Exxon on East Main Street in Pilot Mountain.

Hall has changed oil, rotated tires, installed new tires and handled similar duties at the station, and added that part of the cash he’s earned probably will help pay for work needed on a 1973 Plymouth Duster he owns.

But the East Surry student also is looking to the future, saying that he wants to attend Nashville Diesel School after high school. Those long-range plans conformed well with his summer job at Clyde Fulk Exxon.

“It was a good career opportunity for me,” Hall added. “I enjoy working on cars.”

Owen Fulk of the Exxon outlet said that the 20 hours Hall has spent there each week have enabled him to cover for other employees on vacation. The youth has mastered the various maintenance services offered at the business, he said.

“He’s been a real good asset for us,” Fulk said of Hall, adding that the youth might continue working there part-time after school begins.

Meanwhile, Deborah Bishop, general manager of the Creekside Cinemas in Mount Airy, had job openings for two youths there this summer, Xavier Stillman and Andrew Stouch. They handled ticket sales, ushering and helped out a lot with a free summer movie series for kids, Bishop said, and were especially useful during busy Friday nights at the theater.

“It’s worked very well,” Bishop said of the summer program. “They’re both very nice young men — they’ve done very well.”

The theater has received a boost from the extra workers. “It has helped because we do have limits on the number of employees we can have here at any given time,” the general manager said. “With two extra hands in addition to those that we have, that has really made things a lot easier.”

Response “Amazing”

Such success stories are exactly what officials hoped to accomplish this summer with the countywide jobs effort, according to Polly Long, its coordinator.

“When I start talking about this, I get so excited,” Long said of the program, adding that it was aided by recruiters in Surry’s three school systems and the community college as well as other agencies. Those include the state Employment Security Commission and Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, the local Workforce Development Center and Jones Family Resource Center.

“I feel very good about what we have done and how many people we have served,” Long said of the 239 youths and 129 work sites participating at last report. “I think that is amazing.”

“I could not fill all the work sites — we had so many more work sites where people were requesting kids,” the coordinator said.

Long also was grateful for the help of the Workforce Development Board of the Northwest Piedmont Council of Governments based in Winston-Salem, through which the stimulus dollars for the jobs program were funneled.

Though the youths actually started work around the first of the summer, Long said many months of planning preceded their punching a clock for the first time.

Youths were prepared by participating in the WorkKeys system, which ensures they possess the core job skills desired by employers. The achieving of a Career Readiness Certificate through the program verifies that a would-be applicant can handle the kind of tasks common in today’s workplaces. Those include finding information, reading instructions and directions or working with figures.

“It is a national certification that they always have,” Long said.

Students were taught how to conduct themselves during interviews and other basic requirements in the workplace, such as proper dress and behavior. Program officials sought to match youths with jobs they had an interest in or which perhaps mirrored career goals, Long said.

After being assigned to positions, the youths were overseen by a team of career facilitators who have visited work sites and provided support. The facilitators are Scott Kniskern, Lisa Hartness, Lisa Cline, Christy Thompson, Paula Brinkley and Justin Gammons.

Youth Learns Lessons

Employers who participated in the summer jobs program were rewarded with a pool of well-prepared applicants with mature attitudes and good work ethics, based on comments from officials of WSYD and other businesses.

“We put him right to work,” Epperson, the radio station owner, said of Lightfoot. “He started licking envelopes.” Epperson explained that the new worker appeared at the time billing statements were being mailed by the station.

“When it’s time to get bills out, you drop everything,” he continued. “He started filling and stuffing envelopes and stamping and licking. He recognized that was the most important thing.”

Lightfoot admitted that he has learned much from his first work experience, whether that has included reading weather forecasts over the air, doing live interviews, recording commercials — or simply answering the telephone or pulling obituaries off the fax machine.

He also has helped the station with a requirement of logging all the country and Southern gospel songs it broadcasts.

“Debbie’s had him on the air a whole lot,” Epperson added in reference to Deborah Cochran, a co-worker of Lightfoot’s at WSYD.

“Everywhere I go, people talk about listening to him,” said Cochran, who added that Lightfoot’s weather forecasts have proved especially popular. “He adds his little flair to it and makes it fun to listen to.”

Lightfoot said he’s realized the need to always be aware on the job and to try to stay a step ahead with the varied tasks involved, along with “learning how to run back and forth very fast.”

“It gets a little hectic,” he said.

“I’ve learned that it’s always better to do your work and do it completely, so the person behind you doesn’t have to take up your slack,” added Lightfoot, a 2007 Mount Airy High School graduate. This is important when shift changes occur at the station, with employees who are signing off getting commercials and other items ready for the next person who comes aboard as a courtesy.

Kathi Lightfoot, the mother of the job program participant, said she’s seen big changes in her son as a result of his involvement.

“He’s just become more responsible,” she said. “It’s part of watching him grow up from a boy to a man — I’ve seen that this summer.”

Jonathan Lightfoot, who moved a lot in his younger days due to his mom being in the Navy, says he’s also benefited by something else having nothing to do with money or job skills. That’s being part of a group of people who’ve become like family to him.

“It’s a very caring and loving environment,” he said of the radio station that has about 12 full- and part-time employees overall. “They are really kind and nice people.”

Working at the station also fits in with the career goals of Lightfoot, a mellow-voiced young man who is majoring in theater with a minor in broadcasting. He would like to do voice-over work in the future for commercials or animated productions and possibly be employed again in the radio field.

Though he prefers rock and roll, Lightfoot also has an appreciation for artists whose songs sometimes are broadcast by WSYD, especially Willie Nelson.

Quick Learner

Steve Talley was equally impressed by the qualities Venessa Garcia brought to his Main Street frame shop.

“She’s probably caught on quicker than anybody that’s ever worked here,” he said. In addition to assembling items into frames, Garcia must measure the glass to fit them, then cut it using a mechanical device.

“It does take a little bit of skill,” Talley explained. “It can be intimidating.”

Garcia, who admits being on the shy side, said she preferred to work in a low-key environment with nice people. Officials with the jobs program kept that in mind when placing her with Talley’s Custom Frame and Gallery.

“They said he (Steve) was a real nice guy and would teach me without getting impatient.”

“They’ve been really nice people and they’ve taught me a lot,” the North Surry student added of the handful of employees there.

Along with her other duties, Garcia waits on customers at times and pitches in with “anything that Steve needs me to do.”

Garcia’s family includes a brother and sister, a mother who is employed at Wayne Poultry in Dobson and her father, a construction worker. “And when it rains or when it’s cold, he doesn’t have a job,” Garcia said. So she gives part of her earnings to her parents to help with household expenses. Garcia also tries to help pay for clothing and other items she needs for school, “so they don’t have to.”

“I’m planning on saving some for college,” the youth added of her earnings. “I want to be a pharmacist.” With an eye toward the future, she has opted not to participate in extracurricular activities such as playing on her school’s soccer team so she can concentrate on her grades. Garcia does like to play soccer in her spare time, however.

While working at the frame shop, Garcia said she has learned to pay attention to what her employers need from her and to listen. “What is the point of having a job in the first place if you’re not going to listen?” she said.

Talley said that due to Garcia possessing such qualities, he is hoping to employ the youth after the summer program ends. “I’m very proud to have her,” he said.

Garcia said she appreciates not only being able to work at the frame shop, but the program that made it all possible.

Without the Summer Youth Employment Program, she said, “a lot of kids my age wouldn’t have this opportunity.”

Contact Tom Joyce at tjoyce@mtairynews.com or at 719-1924.