DUBLIN, Ga. — Students, are you interested in a summer job with hands-on experience and a paycheck? If so, you might want to listen up.
The Dublin-Laurens County Chamber of Commerce is partnering with the Dublin City School District and businesses to hire students for their Summer Youth Works Program.
The county's Chamber of Commerce is recruiting businesses in fields like law, marketing, human relations, and more to hire students to work for 8 weeks at a $10 an hour minimum.
They hope it will help further their future careers and give these kids hands-on experience while reinvesting back into their community.
The program provides opportunities for students and connects them with potential employers.
Heath Taylor is the president and CEO of the Dublin-Laurens Chamber of Commerce.
"That's a win for everybody," Taylor said. "That's our hope is that they'll find a job that they enjoy, a career that they look forward to working in. But even if they don't, our real hope here is that they gain experience in what it looks like to have a job, to have a paycheck, to be responsible and to be a teammate and a valuable employee."
Taylor said this is the county's fifth year doing the program, and he has witnessed over 100 students go through it successfully.
"We have students that work in any position from a restaurant worker to a manufacturing facility and they're learning skills about coming to work, teamwork, how to dress, how to show up on time — things that will make them more valuable to their employer," Taylor said.
Miriam Lewis is the executive director at the Visit Dublin Center.
Last year was the center's first time participating in the program, and Lewis says teaching students about communication, marketing and social media skills gets her excited for their futures.
"This is a very difficult time in a high schooler's life where it's — where do I want to go or where do I want to be or am I going to change my career choice, and we're just broadening their horizons a little bit," Lewis said. "It's really awesome to get to talk to these students about things in their very own community that they can, in turn, tell to the community that's passing through."
Dustyn Clements is a junior at West Laurens High School.
He was handed a flyer by his counselor to apply to the program, and he applied to engineering and babysitting programs just to start.
Last year, he started working in the planning and zoning department for the city.
Now, he has been hired full-time and he hopes the work can help him find a job in the field.
"The importance of getting this experience later on helps me build my future from an earlier stage in my life such as becoming involved in the courts at an earlier age so I can decide if this is my future or not," Clements said.
The deadline to apply is Friday, May 3.
For more information, you can visit their website here.