summer employment in Idyllwild

Bill Brown, CSA operations manager, was in Idyllwild this morning. Don’t panic, you didn’t miss a County Service Area 36 or 38 meeting nor an Idyllwild community Recreation Council meeting.

No, Brown was invited to speak about the Business Improvement District and the Summer Work experience Program (SWEP) to the Idyllwild Business Roundtable this morning.

Marshall will be reporting more on the BID issue in next week (April 15) edition. This posting is about the SWEP. Marshall also wrote a story about it for today’s edition. But Brown mentioned some information this morning that I didn’t want to wait a week to disseminate and to share.

Riverside County will work with several non-profit groups to prepare and to place the participants. The program closest to Idyllwild is the California Family Life Center in Hemet. The county has allocated enough money to them to support about 100 participants.

The County encourages interested young people from age 14-24 to apply for the program. It may take several dozen applicants to achieve a 20 hires.

Right now, the county is developing a list of prospective employers. Some of the criteria include committed to mentoring, comply with OSHA and labor regulations and offer meaningful work opportunities to the kids.

If it doesn’t work out you can withdraw. You can use anywhere from ½ to 2 or more participants per business. A half person might work only 4 hours per day or work another 4 hours at a different establishment.

According to Brown, three or four Idyllwild residents participated last year, but had to work in Hemet.

“My goal is they don’t drive off the Hill this year,” he said. The participants will earn $8 per hour but not pay taxes.

Cost: No cost to employer except the time to mentor, train and teach work skills to the employee.

How to begin: Indicate your interest in participating to Bill Brown at (951) 955-3212 or email him at bbrown@rivcoeda.org . If you change your mind after learning more, you can withdraw.

If Idyllwild can employee a significant contingent, the program may continue next year. Also with enough participants, the county could justify hiring a program manager to be located here.

That person would spend time with the participants and the businesses and try to ensure that both parties find the program useful and beneficially.