by KYW's Pat Loeb
While much of the federal stimulus money is trickling into the economy slowly, one group of workers felt the impact quickly: teenagers.
Stimulus money created 2,500 summer jobs in Philadelphia.
(Sound of Fernando Santiago answering a telephone at Esperanza)
Fernando Santiago wants to be a crime scene investigator when he gets older, and the 15-year-old Masterman School student figures doing odd jobs at Esperanza this summer can't hurt:
"A part of a CSI's job description would be in the office, so learning how to file correctly and learning how to do a database, it is going to help a lot."
Fernando (above) is one of 9,000 kids who got summer jobs through the Philadelphia Youth Network (see related story). Melissa Orner (right) says her organization feared they'd only be able to offer 6,500 jobs this summer -- but then along came the stimulus program:
"We considered it kind of a 'shovel ready' project in that we already have a summer program that we run. We already knew we were going to have more kids than we could place, so when they said stimulus money is coming, we were able to hit the ground running."
PYN was one of the first recipients of stimulus money in the city, and it's one of the few projects that actually provides jobs directly.
And lest you think it doesn't have much economic impact, Fernando explains that he apportions his money much the way an adult would:
"I spend about half on myself and I save some for the school year in case I need some new supplies, because my parents are going through a rough spot."
Fernando's boss at Esperanza -- Ralph Rodriguez (in background of top photo) -- thinks there's an even greater impact from the summer jobs program:
"There's a civic benefit here. When I say these kids are brilliant, they have extremely high potential. And if it weren't for programs like this, society in general would lose."
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