A half-dozen youths from St. Thomas, St. John and the mainland are spending about seven weeks this summer on the job at V.I. National Park.
As part of the park’s Youth Conservation Corps (YCC), the ambitious teens, ages 15 to 18, are learning new skills, exploring possibilities and earning some money at the minimum wage jobs.
“I want to earn enough money to buy clothes and equipment for school,” said 16-year-old St. Thomas resident Allen LeBlanc, who’s also a Eudora Kean High School student.
LeBlanc may join the U.S. Army after he graduates from high school so he can follow in his father’s footsteps.
Filling the summer with something useful to do was one of the reasons St. John resident Andre Wilkinson, 16, wanted the job. Wilkinson, who’s a Gifft Hill School student, is actually planning a career as a boat captain or a mechanic so he got on-the-job training that will help him further his career.
An informal survey of the five young men and the one young woman on the job show that most of the young men liked working with the park’s mechanics best because it isn’t boring. The jobs cover everything from beach cleanups to weed whacking to whatever needs doing.
The youths said they liked the variety that comes with the summer job.
“It opens up different things that you didn’t know about. It’s different every day,” Atlanta resident Marquis Pilgrim, 15, said.
Pilgrim spends summers with his mother and grandmother, who live on St. John, so he’s no stranger to the island. However, this was the first time he had a summer job. He’s spent plenty of time at the beach, so the job is a welcome change.
“I’d rather work every day,” he said, noting that engineer or forensic scientist jobs are on his possible career list.
St. John resident De’Quan Cline, 16, learned that some of the park’s maintenance jobs aren’t as easy as they look. The Eudora Kean student wants to be an engineer when he graduates.
Aaron Cathey, 16, of Westminster, Colo., is spending the summer with his aunt and uncle on St. John. He said he likes the experience he’s getting while on the job.
The one young woman, Lavenia Donastorg, 15, of St. Thomas, has gained such diverse experience as working on the computer and cleaning boats. However, the summer job opened up a career possibility when she accompanied a park ranger on one of the park’s guided Reef Bay hikes. The Antilles High School student said she would definitely think about a career with the National Park Service.
Park Superintendent Mark Hardgrove sees the bigger picture for the youths. He said that it allows them to see whether they’d like to work indoors or outside and if they want to be entrepreneurs or part of a team.
According to Hardgrove, the park wants to create a quality experience for the youths to help them make choices when it comes to careers.
He said that while the park has employed up to 15 youths during the four years it has run the YCC program, six appears to be the optimum number for providing a good experience.
When the youths are done with the job, the park will treat them to a trip to the national parks on St. Croix to further broaden their horizons, Hardgrove said.
Glen Sprauve, a park motor vehicle operator, who supervises the youths, had nothing but good words for their efforts.
“Whatever I ask them to do, they do,” he said.
