YCC to hire 8 for summer projects

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

Editor's note: First in a two-part series on the Youth Conservation Corps in Grants and Gallup.

GRANTS — Eight individuals between the ages of 14-25 will soon begin work as Youth Conservation Corps employees through a grant received by the Future Foundations Family Center.

Center Executive Director Laura Malaj said the center received an award of a $30,000 grant for a summer program, which will last 10 weeks. The grant was applied for by the center after not having a corps grant for the past two years and was awarded by the New Mexico Youth Conservation Corps.

The program begins the first week of June and ends in August. Corps workers will work on outside projects such as gardening at the center and will build a playground at Mesa Park, both of which are part of the grant's requirements that corps workers construct or maintain projects "of lasting value," Malaj said.

Mesa Park is near Los Alamitos Middle School.

City of Grants Councilors Walter Jaramillo and Mody Hicks have agreed to help provide supervision.

One of the projects planned includes placing trees and benches along Santa Fe Avenue, she said.

MainStreet in Grants has previously stated that was one of its planned projects, but Malaj said she does not think the two similar projects will be a problem for either organization.

In-kind services
"The supplies and materials are all being paid for by the city," Malaj said. "There is about $75,000 in supplies that are being provided for the project."

The city, as the center's partner in the grant application, is required to provide in-kind services, such as the purchase of supplies, materials and provide assistance such as supervision.

"There was also some talk of prisoners providing some work on the project," Malaj said. "The prisoners will be from the men's prison on Lobo Canyon Road and will not be at the project site the same time as the corps workers.

"The prisoners will drill out the sidewalks for us to place the trees."

During the summer program, the corps workers, who will all probably be students, including college students since the age goes to 25, will do the outside work in the mornings, she said.

In the afternoons, those corps workers will go into the center and provide supervision and assistance for children who will be in the summer programs, Malaj said.

Some of the things the corps students will help with are cooking projects and crafts.

Job skills classesThe students will also receive classes on resum writing, interview skills for when they apply for a job and how to fill out a job application. They will also take and complete CPR classes, Malaj said.

This is a reimbursable grant, so the center had to find a partner the city of Grants before receiving the grant. Malaj said City Manager Bob Horacek approached the center requesting Malaj to file the application.

In Gallup, a similar Youth Conservation Corps program is ongoing. It has some differences which will be published in Tuesday's edition.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.