- Welcome to American Black Journal.

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

Applications are being accepted through May 16th for the City of Detroit's annual summer jobs program for teens and young adults.

It's called Grow Detroit's Young Talent, and the city's hoping to match 8,000 young Detroiters, ages 14 to 24 with employers.

The goal is to provide work experiences that'll lead to future career opportunities.

Joining me now is Dana Williams.

She is the President and CEO of Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation, which manages the program, along with Joseph Holley, a past participant in Grow Detroit's Young Talent.

Welcome both of you to "American Black Journal."

- Pleasure to be here.

- Thanks so much.

- So how long have we been doing, it seems like we're close, at least, to a nice round number.

Is that right?

- Indeed, about 10 years.

- 10.

- 2015 was the first year.

- Yeah, and the importance of this, of course is, having opportunities for young people in the city to do something productive during the summer, but also connecting them with future opportunity, things that might change their lives later.

- Absolutely.

And so in 2015, we had a mere 5,000 people that we connected with opportunities and now, we're up to 8,000 young people a year between the ages of 14 and 24.

And of course, those experiences have gotten more and more complex over the years.

We began, of course, a 14-year-old with a different kind of experience than someone who's 21 or 22, right.

(laughs) - [Stephen] Yeah, I would expect that.

- So earlier in someone's experiences, they're really just learning how to go to work, right?

So those might be more community-based projects, working with our police and fire department, other neighborhood based organizations and as folks grow up in the program, 'cause they quite literally do that.

They begin to have experiences with some of our larger employers in an area that they might even have interest in long term, 'cause that is ultimately the goal that at least some of our young people end up with a full-time job opportunity at the end of that last summer.

- Yeah.

Let's go back to the beginning when you started this.

How do you start, I mean, this is an ambitious program, not just in terms of the number, but the nature of it.

How do you convince even community groups or businesses that hey, you should have a young person there over the summer?

- Well, I gotta say it's much easier to do now than it was then.

- Yeah, I'll bet.

- 'Cause people have now seen the program.

- They see that it works.

- They know the wraparound services that the young people are gonna get, so that they can show up and show up the right way.

At the very beginning, it was actually building on what was already a pretty strong foundation of youth employment in the city.

The public high school system had co-ops and internships.

Right, so some businesses were used to it, at least a little bit.

And there were some summer programs already operating.

And so we used that as a foundation to start.

And from there, you know, Detroit is a word of mouth town.

And so that is exactly what happened.

- Now everybody wants to be part of it.

- That's it.

That's it.

- Tell me about your experiences with Grow Detroit's Young Talent.

What year were you?

- I started in, I believe, 2020.

During the COVID period.

It was a rough year.

I've been with Micro Work Studios throughout that entire period.

Beautiful program that focuses on e-commerce and marketing through digital means.

It's a very interesting thing, watching kids come through and wanna learn more about marketing.

I kind of found my voice through the program and this is how I got the courage to be here today.

It's through finding my voice through Micro Work Studios and it's a beautiful thing.

- Yeah, take me back to the first day that you did this.

- I was a very nervous person.

- Okay, you were?

(laughs) - Like, I was kind of nervous now, but day one I was very nervous.

I wanted to make a good first impression, but I was worried that what I wanted to do at the time wouldn't fit the mold of what they wanted to teach us.

And then going through the program, I began to learn more and more that what I wanted to do, which was writing, and to eventually publish books and sell books and sell stories.

I felt that that really fit with marketing and my writing ability has really shown through, especially with the talents that I've learned through MicroWorks and through GDYT.

- Yeah, and your work now is permanently- - With MicroWorks, right.

- Yeah, yeah.

At what point did you decide, okay, this is the right fit for me.

- It was two years ago, but I was still a bit in my own shell.

So I feel like I got in my own way as far as like, as much as outreach and how much I could have done with MicroWorks.

But last year I came in ready to make an impact and I wanted to show that I was not only ready to work, that I was capable of doing things for the program and helping them out in as many ways as possible.

- Yeah, yeah.

So when listening to Joseph talk about these experiences, I hear a number of different things.

But one of 'em is the development of what they would call, I guess, soft skills.

The ability to walk into an environment and, you know, start work and to manage all of the relationships and the things that come in the workplace.

I mean, he's found a career, but he's also found the ability to kind of settle into it.

- Yes, and that's what we hope is everyone's story, 'cause it's really about finding purpose.

- Yeah.

- Right?

A career and a job is about maximizing your own individual talents in a way that you feel like serves the world.

- Yeah.

- And that's really what we're hoping that young people find and what we call them are essential skills, or foundational skills, 'cause that's really at the core of everything.

If you've got some confidence, and especially if you can communicate, you're more than halfway there.

- Right, right.

You mentioned the wraparound services before, as a selling point for employers.

Talk a little more about what that looks like.

- Yeah.

We do quite a bit of readiness training, is what we call it.

Right, so all kinds of things.

One is certainly financial literacy.

So for some young people, this is the first time that they're getting a paycheck.

So we wanna make sure they know what to do with it.

- [Stephen] What to do with that, right.

- So we have relationships with banking institutions and with a credit union primarily to come in and help introduce people to that.

'Cause think about it, I don't know about you, but you know, my parents did take me to a bank for the first time.

- Sure.

- Teach me how to fill out the piece of paper.

And not everybody has that.

- Right, sure.

- Especially in the digital age.

We're a lot different, so that's certainly one of them.

But we also provide things like connections to resources for anybody that might have food or housing insecurity.

Of any kind, and then also as an expansion, really in just the last two years, it's around mental health.

We're finding our young people are dealing with a lot.

And so we also have behavioral health specialists and things that work with us to make sure that that young person is a whole person.

- Yeah.

When you think about the 10 years that you've been doing this and how it's grown, it seems to me that it's not just that you're changing life for young people.

I mean, this is changing the city in some ways, because it's creating a whole (indistinct) of young people who become adults who've had this incredible experience.

- Absolutely.

We want them to feel that they have a place here, as an adult.

I admit I was one of those young people who left and came back, even though I'm a native Detroiter.

But I'm so glad that I did and I want other people to feel like they don't have to leave to grow, to get a cool job.

To live a full life, right?

We've got so much else happening in our city, lots of fun events and restaurants and other entertainment that's happening.

We wanna make sure that people feel like they've got purpose and a way to fuel that.

- And they're part of it.

Yeah.

So Joseph, what's next for you?

- I would love to continue to do the work that I do with MicroWorks, but I do have ambitions of eventually like starting my own business, rather it be through digital means or selling things in person through like stores and such, I would love to do that.

I would also just love to eventually get into television because I do feel like I have- - Well, come sit here and interview us.

- Maybe one day.

- There you go.

- Maybe one day.

- Yeah.

So when you talk about starting your own business, like where does that come from, do you think?

- I feel like learning that you can sell yourself.

When it comes to marketing, the number one thing that you're selling to people is a story and you're selling your story.

And it's important to be able to connect to people on a personal level when it comes to selling products, and I feel like I've learned how to do that really well through my experiences through GDYT.

And I think that's something that I want to work on more and I want to learn.

To eventually like sell that myself.

- Yeah, okay.

Well, Joseph, congratulations.

Thank you so much.

- To you and Dana, congratulations on a decade of GDYT.

- A decade and going strong.

- That's amazing.

Thanks for being here on "American Black Journal."

- Thank you.

- Our pleasure.