Too Many Chores? Not Enough Time?

Matt Consalvo, a high school senior, has been doing a lot of shoveling this winter through the Youth Employment Program of the Parks and Recreation Commission. He has volunteered in the Program for four years, moving furniture, gardening and doing other work, but most of the teens are paid. 

Established in the late 1980s, the Program has been more active in recent years, with about 110 teens enrolled for work, plus an additional 25 college students. The teens will do many of those chores around the house that homeowners don’t have the time or energy for.

“Shoveling has been very popular lately,” says Donna Korb, who administers the Program, “And baby sitting is the other job people ask for a lot.”

Students age 12 and older can sign up by filling out a simple form that lists a variety of jobs, including plant and animal care, mowing, weeding and raking, tutoring, office work, cleaning out garages… “I added garages to the list because we had so many calls for it,” Korb says. The youngest kids in the program often start as mothers’ helpers and as they get older, moms become more comfortable going out and leaving the teens as baby sitters. 

The Parks and Recreation Department sponsors a baby-sitting class given by an American Red Cross instructor. 

“There’s a small cost for the class,” Korb says, “But it fills up every time we offer it. Kids learn what to do in emergency situations: for example, if a child chokes, or falls and gets a cut, what to do?”

The course comes with a book, and teens who take it receive a card showing that they completed it. But Korb stresses that it’s not necessary to take the course to apply for babysitting in the Youth Employment Program.

Adrianne and Will Reardon, whose family moved to Brookfield about a month ago from New Hampshire, have just enrolled in the Program. Though young, both bring considerable on-the-job work experience.

At age 13, Adrianne is the oldest of seven children — Pierce, age 10, Chandler, eight, Quentin, six, Connor, five, and the youngest, Dayna, 14 months. Adrianne helps her mom by watching her younger brothers and the baby. She knows how to do the family laundry and vacuuming. She can cook — “from a recipe,” she says, and she easily recites the ingredients for Sour Cream Chicken. She loves making Brownie for Pizza dessert, which consists of softened cream cheese and kiwis, strawberries and other fruit on top of a brownie. 

Adrianne wants to be a teacher, and she helps her mom who is home-schooling the children. 

“If someone has a question or a problem with math, I can usually answer it,” she says. “I like being able to hang around kids and see their imagination — they can be so creative.” 

Both she and Will, 12, have a variety of experience with the house, yard and animals. They have both split and stacked wood, raked leaves and done weeding and gardening. Adrianne kept lovebirds and raised one of their babies. The Reardons rescued their lively seven-year-old Chihuahua, Sampson, who was homeless.

Will, 12, has mucked stables and taken care of family cats and dogs and would like to do pet sitting. He’s also available for lawn mowing, flower planting and gardening, among other jobs.

“We act as a liaison between the kids and people who need help,” Korb explains.

She gives the teens a list of residents who live in their area, with telephone numbers, and when someone from their neighborhood calls, she alerts the teen, who calls them directly to discuss the job and what it might pay. 

“We have a lot of kids in college who did babysitting through our program and now they just do it during the summer,” Korb says. She adds that teens often find their jobs lead to other jobs through word-of-mouth, and sometimes to permanent jobs. 

“That’s one of the program’s goals,” Korb says, “steady permanent jobs for teens.”