NPO’s step in as $46M initiative aims to get teens jobs

CHICAGO — Last month, Mayor Brandon Johnson highlighted the $46.5 million ‘One Summer Chicago Plan,’ which aimed to offer jobs to 28,000 Chicago area youths this summer as a pro-active means to keep kids off the streets and away from gun violence.

Alt Space and Root-2-Fruit are two non-profit organizations doing just that.

Root-2-Fruit sends mentors, like Jordan Campbell, out into the community to recruit young people to do something positive during the summer.

“Providing an opportunity and exposing our participants to something different is always refreshing for me,” Campbell said.

Efforts from the likes of Alt Space and Root-2-Fruit come as two recent fatal shootings at the hands of teenagers, grab Chicago headlines.

A 16-year-old boy was charged as an adult with first degree murder in the alleged shooting death of retired Chicago police officer Larry Neuman, while another 16-year-old is facing similar charges in the alleged murder of 7-year-old Jai’Mani Rivera, which happened just days prior.

“As I think about both of those situations, it’s an outcry to me,” Campbell said.

Alongside Johnson’s One Summer Chicago Plan, the Chicago Park District is also providing more than 3,000 summer jobs, while other organizations aim to provide mentoring, counseling and spaces to learn life skills, like the ones at Alt Space.

“Sometimes, when you don’t have anything to do or don’t know what to do, it’s easy to be influenced by what everybody else is doing because you never had a goal in the first place,” said Angelo Scott, a member of the Alt Space cohort.

Scott said he’s found his goal, and hopes to someday make a difference of his own.

“I’m actually a cook,” Scott said. “I was telling him, I want to make a food truck and go around as a non-profit where I cook and give it to the homeless. I want to travel and do that.”