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50 For 50 #15: What I Did on My Summer Vacation
This is the fifteenth in a continuing series of stories--one every day for 50 days--to conclude IKRON's year-long celebration of our 50th anniversary. Missed one? No problem! See the entire series on our news page here.
In March of 2015, the Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities (OOD) proposed a new adventure for IKRON: a summer youth program. IKRON already serves transitional youth year-round; was it time for a short-term program as well?
OOD had identified a need for young people who needed some practice with job seeking skills, time management, and work behaviors, as well as developing vocational interests and independent living skills. Their proposal for IKRON was that we would host some of these young people for a few weeks, teaching them these necessary work skills and giving them a chance to immediately put those skills into practice in a real-world work setting.
The first summer youth group in 2015 was 12 students who worked with employers around Cincinnati, including a beekeeping site, while learning as much as they could about their job interests and critical skills. After the initial two months of working with this group of young people, we were hooked.
Five years in, the program has grown to serving 45 youth in 2019 at our main office, plus a shorter, two-week program in Warren County. We continue to enjoy supporting young people as they take their first steps into independent adulthood.
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