Brandon Sharp will be a senior at Starkville Academy this year, and while some of his peers might have spent their last high school summer on the beach, Sharp spent his on the back of a garbage truck.
“It was definitely a new experience for me to ride on the back of that truck,” Sharp said. “It’s hard work a lot of the time, and your partner really has to work with you. It’s like four straight hours of going. You got to be prepared that’s for sure.”
Sharp and more than 30 other students, ages 15 to 25, took part in Starkville’s first Youth Employment Services (YES) program, working with the city on various projects, from beautification to sanitation.
Their work began at the beginning of the summer, June 1, and end last Friday at city hall, where those who graduated from the program gave an overview of the completed projects and were recognized by Mayor Parker Wiseman and other administration.
Funded through a grant by the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the program’s goal was to teach work-related skills and habits to students who could be entering the job market soon, project director Stefanie Shackelford said, something she thinks is of the upmost importance.
“It is vital,” she said. “You need that kind of training and job experience before you get into the work place, because, in a lot of cases, the only environment they know that could compare is school, but it’s much more socially focused there.
“When they enter the work force, it is more serious and professional, and for them to be able to transition they need to understand the difference.”
The youth who participated had an unrelenting willingness work, according to Emily Gillylen, the president of the Mayor’s Youth Council.
“They keep you going, they never seem to say I am tired or anything, they were always ready to move to the next thing,” Gillylen said.
But Shackelford said the program wants to do more than foster an eagerness to work. Sometimes, she said, it is more about following instructions than just simply being excited to work.
“We try to show them that there are procedures and protocols that you have to go through sometimes,” Shackelford said. “It’s really about the importance of leadership, even on the job, when to take the initiative to do things and when to follow directions of a supervisor.”
A graduate student pursuing a Masters in Public Policy and Administration at Mississippi State University, Gillylen served as a site supervisor for the traffic and data entry team, who worked on a parking feasibility study.
Prior to the completion of the study, Starkville did not have an accurate count of the number of parking spaces it had in the downtown district. Gillylen’s team recorded 586 public spaces in the area, from Jackson Street to Raymond Street and from Lampkin Street to Jefferson Street, a seven-block radius.
Gillylen said 586 public spaces is comparable to the number of spaces Oxford recorded for the area surrounding the Square, but included a 21-block radius.
“Most cities you can go to the planning department and say how many spaces do we have? Well we didn’t have that number so we decided to do this study, and now we do have that number,” she said. “We have a pretty good amount of parking available, the only lot private lot we included was City Hall.”
Gillylen said she thinks the real city employees who helped with the program are going to miss the kids as much as the kids will miss the program.
“The kids were so proud to able to help,” she said. “It was fulfilling for them, even though some of it was just manual labor, they really felt like they were giving back.
“The veterans over in the sanitation department said they were definitely going to miss that ‘young man’ strength. Everyone was on the same page, I am so proud of all of them.”
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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