A SUMMER PROGRAM TURNED CAREER PATH

Story originally published April 2024 via The Buffalo News

It can be hard to fill the long summer days as a teenager. So when Samuel Hayes and Aramis Fournier heard about Northland Workforce Training Center’s Summer Youth Academy, it was an easy yes.

Part of the City of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown’s Summer Youth Internship & Employment Program, NWTC’s Summer Academy offers teenagers ages 14-20 the opportunity to complete a fully paid, six-week immersion experience into its programs of study.

Participants explore hands-on trades like welding, machining, advanced manufacturing, electrical construction and maintenance and mechatronics. They also get extra support like career counseling, help filling out college applications and beginner-level certifications.

“We were experiencing different trades … getting a taste of every program, seeing what you liked and what you didn’t like,” Samuel explains.

He first participated the summer after his junior year at Charter School for Applied Technologies, eager for any opportunities amid pandemic-related cancelations and shut-downs. He came back a second year, and following that summer, enrolled in NWTC’s electrical construction and maintenance electrician (ECME) program.

Now, Samuel is graduating with an associate degree through SUNY Alfred State College (NWTC is an extension campus for Alfred State, as well as SUNY Erie Community College) and is hoping to find employment in a commercial or industrial setting. His family has cheered him on throughout his years at NWTC.

“Everybody’s supporting me, because I’m the first person in my family and my friends to really take this pathway – nobody else has done it,” he says.

For Aramis, his two rounds of the summer program while still a student at Western New York Maritime Charter School helped prepare him for the vigor of his classes once he enrolled in NWTC’s associate program in welding technology, also offered through Alfred State. However, he was still grateful for the encouragement he found with older classmates.

“They were able to guide me through, and then towards the end of my first year I got a lot better understanding of the work,” he says.

Instructor and program chair Guy Hughson was also crucial to supporting Aramis when he saw him faltering his first semester, promising he would thrive in the program if he just stuck it out.

“It was kind of a struggle towards the beginning, but he knew that I had a strong heart. He knew I had a good mindset,” he says. “He wasn’t gonna let me go.”

Aramis is graduating this semester and taking interviews with several prospective employers. Eventually, he hopes to use his welding skills to start a custom metalwork business, crafting art and home goods pieces.

Not bad for a six-week summer program.