Stimulus helps youth find summer work

By Christina Killion Valdez
8/22/2009 Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

Amanda Wondrow knows what it’s like to be represented by a public defender. Now, she’s on the other side of the briefcase.

After her mother’s death and before becoming a teen mother, Wondrow, 21, said she had some problems with the law. Yet, through Summer Youth Connections, a Minnesota Workforce Center program that uses stimulus dollars to provide work readiness training and jobs for at-risk youth, Wondrow is working at the Public Defender’s office.

“It’s changed my life,” she said. “It’s not just a job — it’s a career.”

Getting to this point, however, has taken some work.

In a tight economy, a criminal background of any sort compounds the difficulty of finding jobs for young people, said Jeremy Hildman, youth counselor at the WorkForce Center in Rochester.

“Even if it’s an isolated incident, it really affects the rest of their life in trying to get employment,” he said.

Stimulus dollars

To help, about $16.1 million in stimulus dollars was committed through the Youth Recovery Act to pay the salaries of young adults ages 14 to 24. Most of the jobs are at nonprofit or government organizations where youths can work up to 40 hours a week for $7.25 per hour, Hildman said.

The funding has enabled 5,650 young people in Minnesota to find work this summer. It’s also helped cash-strapped employers bring in workers, with the stipulation that the youth don’t replace or displace regular workers.

All participants attend a two-week job training program, for which they are paid a stipend and bonus. At the end of the training, they are matched to a work site that fits their interests, Hildman said.

Wondrow is one of more than 100 young people who have already gone through the program this year in Rochester, with more expected by the end of the summer, he said.

Based on her career assessment, Hildman sought a job for Wondrow at the public defenders office.

There she’s come to understand the enormous case loads and tremendous pressures public defenders work under.

“They do as much as they can do,” she said of the attorneys.

On the job training

For her part, Wondrow said she evaluates clients in the juvenile and adult detention centers to see how they can get help rather than go to prison, she said.

And while she was originally hired to work 200 hours, her job was extended to up to 600 hours, she said. Now, she’ll be able to continue working even after she starts classes next month at Rochester Community and Technical College to become a human service specialist.

Able to look back at her life now, Wondrow said although her past has been difficult, it helped make her future possible.

Her mother died of cancer when Wondrow was 16. After that she bounced around living with her stepfather and boyfriend, who later got into drugs, she said. At age 19, she found out she was pregnant.

“She saved my life,” Wondrow said of her now 14-month-old daughter. “I don’t know what I would have done without her.”

Wondrow’s supervisor, Donavan Bailey, dispositional adviser for the 3rd District Public Defenders Office, agreed that Wondrow’s history helped prepare her for what can be a demanding job working with people convicted of homicide, drug dealing or who are chemically dependent.

“She’s come from some of that background. In that way she’s worked out really well,” he said. “She can relate to the clientele and their situations.”

She also has the skills needed to work with lawyers, judges and other professionals, he said.

“She had some skill and passion for social work and is doing well,” he said.

WDI youth counselor in the Post-Bulletin

In case you missed it because you live or do not live in Rochester.  These articles were in the Rochester Post-Bulletin.  The story highlights one our current Youth Counselors – Horace Bryant and the road he travels here in Rochester.  Well Done, Horace.

Rochester man helps young people take another jab at life

By Matthew Stolle
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

Horace Bryant stood in the middle of the ring, challenging the young pugilist opposite him to bring his punches faster and with more power.

“Hands up. Pop it again. Faster, faster,” Bryant urged, his gloved hands absorbing a growing fury of jabs and two- and three-shot combinations until he finally winced.

It’s one of the things that Bryant loves about the 4th Street Boxing Gym in southwest Rochester: the sense of safe haven and refuge. Once a young man passes through the gym’s glass doors, all the troubles that trail today’s youth — the drugs, the gangs, the family dysfunctions — are momentarily left on the street.

And Bryant is worried about today’s youth. So worried in fact that he founded a non-profit several years ago called “Saving a Generation,” a program aimed at providing mentors and positive role models to young people.

Bryant has stood in court with juvenile offenders, pledging to be their sponsors. He drives up to the Red Wing Correctional Facility on a regular basis, working on developing “game plans” with juveniles for when they get out. He arranges tutors for kids, teaches them to prepare for job interviews and often hosts barbecues at his home.

Horace Bryant sees helping kids as his calling

By Matthew Stolle
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

Four years ago, Horace Bryant arrived at the doorstep of the Red Wing Correctional Facility for juvenile offenders with a group of young men in tow and a growing sense in his heart that he had been called to help young people in crisis.

Warden Otis Zanders said he came away from that first meeting impressed with Bryant’s determination to help at-risk youth.

“There was something about his spirit. He just looked at society’s plight and said, ‘What can I do?'” Zanders said. “He’s a tireless warrior.”

Since that initial meeting, Bryant, founder of “Saving a Generation,” a Rochester organization dedicated to mentoring young people, has become a go-to guy for the facility.

Bryant regularly meets with the young inmates there. The goal is to set the stage for a successful, law-abiding life outside detention, and Bryant makes clear to them that they should view him as a resource for counseling, advice and support, Zanders said.

“Naturally, some take advantage of it. Some don’t,” Zanders said. “There’s a ton of kids that can give you testimony to this man’s commitment.”

Sense of security

In person, Bryant has a direct gaze and the build of an NFL linebacker. Gregarious by nature, the 51-year-old Bryant has a tendency to cast a wide social net, drawing people into his orbit. He says his daughters try to avoid shopping with him, because of his habit of accosting other shoppers.

In and around the boxing ring, he revels in the role of coach, keeping up a continuous patter of good-natured razzing and encouragement.

One of the half dozen young people Bryant worked with earlier this week was Chris Watson. A stocky 20-year-old with two prominent studded earrings and a mean punch, Watson said his life was pretty much at a stand still until he hooked up with Bryant about four months ago.

After being referred to Bryant through the workforce center, Bryant helped Watson get a job at the YMCA.

For his job interview, Bryant taught Watson the importance of eye contact and speaking forcefully. “I was really soft-spoken,” Watson said. Bryant also paid his registration fee and for the gear he now uses to box.

“I feel like I’ve known him forever,” Watson said. “He’s got me going to church every Sunday. All that stuff.”

When one young boxer keeps getting punched on his exposed chin, Bryant tells him to keep his chin down or he’ll keep getting “presents.”

“Keep your chin down,” Bryant calls. “You love presents. Give him presents.”

Bryant believes times are different for young people. Yes, many of the temptations and pitfalls are the same as when he was a kid growing up in New York City. Drugs and gangs exist now just as they did then, as do single parent homes. Bryant had no father when he was growing up.

But neighbors served as surrogate parents and watched over him. That sense of tight-knit neighborhood solidarity is gone now, Bryant said, creating a vacuum that some young people are filling by joining gangs and embracing the street.

“It’s gone. Neighbors don’t even know their neighbors,” Bryant said.

Filling the vacuum

The goal of Bryant’s Saving a Generation organization is to fill that vacuum with positive role models.

Bryant is open about the blemishes in his own past. He admits he lived a “fast life” when he worked on Wall Street as the manager of a data processing unit for a brokerage house.

Even after IBM asked him to move to Rochester, Bryant says, he continued “living in sin,” running with women and separating from his wife. He and his wife have since reconciled.

Bryant said a turning point in his life began when he found himself in church mentoring a young man.

“It was a slow process. I started with one guy, and the next thing you know, there’s a couple of kids I’m hanging out with, taking bike rides with and speaking with them. After a while, it started to seem that this is my calling,” he said.

Propelled by faith

Reaching out to young people at a crossroads in life brings its own challenges. Bryant has learned there is no guarantee of success. He has spent months preparing juvenile offenders in the Red Wing correctional facility for life on the outside, only to have them return to the streets once they get out.

The father of four daughters, Bryant said his wife has shown a tolerant heart for what Bryant regards as his calling.

“She knows it’s from my heart. She’s also a Christian that believes,” Bryant said.

Earlier this year, Bryant was laid off from IBM. He has since found work at the work force center, but the job will end at the end of the month.

But Bryant is a man propelled by faith.

“And to this day, my bills have been paid. And I still find the money to buy the things that the guys here need,” he said.