Working together: Canada Summer Jobs, YAAACE & BTST

This summer Beat the Streets Toronto was pleased to partner with the Youth Association for Academics, Athletics and Character Education (YAAACE) and The Canada Summer Jobs Program to offer summer jobs to eight students working with youth in the underserved communities of North West Toronto. 

YAACE is a community organization that seeks to engage children and youth from all communities — particularly those from poor racialized communities — in activities that promote opportunity, civic/social inclusion, identity development, resilience, accountability and self-advocacy.  Canada Summer Jobs Programs provides funding to help employers create summer job opportunities for students.  It is designed to focus on local priorities while helping both students and their communities.

It was a very rewarding experience for everyone involved.  Most of the hired students were employed for the first time and were able to work in their own communities. We were happy to see the development of these eight students as they learned a wide variety of important life skills that they're able to take with and apply them to future endeavours and add to their resumes.

These students come directly out of our mentorship program and as such, are able to use the funds they generated over the summer towards funding their wrestling aspirations throughout the season, like going to tournaments  or purchasing wrestling gear.

From my point of you it was a win-win situation for all involved! I truly enjoyed being a part of this program and look forward to continuing and building on it for next year. Thank you so much to the good people at YAAACE for working with us and allowing us to be a part of their program and we are grateful to Canada Summer Jobs for awarding us with the funds to make this all happen! 

Sincerely,
Neal Ewers
Executive Director