Payday For Teens Employed Through Indy Summer Jobs Program

Mayor Joe Hogsett says last year Project Indy helped 1,000 teenagers find employment, and says the city doubled that number this year. (Photo by Drew Daudelin)

Monday was payday for over 2,000 teenagers who got jobs through the city’s summer youth employment program.

The program, called Project Indy, is meant to help low-income youth find summer jobs, especially in areas of the city where jobs aren’t easy to find. On its website Project Indy says it offers job opportunities, soft-skill development and job-readiness training.

Mayor Joe Hogsett visited one group near Tarkington Park, to hand out the checks.

Hogsett says last year Project Indy helped 1,000 teenagers find employment, and says the city doubled that number this year.

He credits improved relationships with private and nonprofit organizations, as well as the city’s parks department, for the growth.

“But frankly it’s made possible because the summertimes are now six, seven, maybe eight weeks long," Hogsett says. "So it’s imminently doable, and we just need to give more people opportunities for meaningful summer employment.”

Seventeen-year-old Trinity Perry worked for five weeks, at the Martin Luther King Community Center across the street from Tarkington Park. It was her first summer job.

“I wanted to stop getting into trouble," Perry says. "And I wanted to start making money.”

Perry says she plans on working again next summer.

Hogsett says he wants the program to employ 3,000 teenagers in 2018.