St. Charles County gets $1.5 million in stimulus money to expand training for unemployed and summer jobs for youths
More than $1.5 million in federal economic stimulus money will fund a major expansion of summer youth jobs and training programs for unemployed people provided through St. Charles County government.
Don Holt, director of the county Workforce Development Center, said $600,000 of the $1.56 million will expand the youth job program. He said over the next two summers, 100 to 150 low-income people between the ages of 16 and 24 will be able to participate.
He said some in the program will work for county government doing landscape and maintenance work and similar tasks. He said participants in college or who have recently graduated could be assigned to work such as manning computer help desks.
He said plans call for some of the money to pay participants to work at nonprofit organizations or in internships at private companies. The summer jobs will run from May 1 to Sept. 30. To find out if you qualify and to get more information, call Patty McNamee at 636-278-1360, extension 253.
The remainder of the $1.56 million will expand the amount of training that the agency can provide to laid-off workers and other people at agency offices or through St. Charles Community College and other schools.
The federal money also will be used to open a second county workforce development office and training center in a county-owned building at 400 North Second Street in St. Charles. The agency’s headquarters is at 212 Turner Boulevard in St. Peters.
The county agency has seen a major increase in requests for assistance during the recession. There were 10,808 visits by people seeking help from the agency last month - up from 4,182 visits in March of last year. The county unemployment rate hit 8.3 percent in February.
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What, no comment from the reporter on the comments read by out of town and our of touch councilman Paul Wynn? The best part of his manifesto,
in St. Charles County “there is not a shortage of jobs, but there is an abundance of people looking for a free handout”
In other words, he thinks the 15777 people in St. Charles County are just tickled to death to get this money from the federal government so that they can continue to take it easy on handouts.
None of this money is for unemployment checks. All of this money will go directly to training, counseling, and the updating skills of recently laid off workers.
Suzanne, what a completely unaware thing for the councilman to say, but not unexpected from a West Point “soldier of fortune.” I’d say he will come home with $400,000 in the bank from his “consulting” stint in Iraq. Perhaps the great justice part of that is that he will have to settle back into the local economy because the Iraqi gravy train has left the station with the departure of the last presidential administration.
Paul Wynn is one of the “flat earth”, know-nothing wing of the Republican Party, so nothing he says surprises me. Since he doesn’t believe in accepting money from the federal government, I wonder how he justifies his paycheck now that he is overseas being a mercenary? Just a tad hypocritical, I would say.
But I understand that Joe Brazil voted with Paul to refuse federal funding for helping out the unemployed. What the heck is Joe thinking? I guess he must be trading votes. This is incredibly poor leadership by Brazil!