Cultivating Hope Through SF YouthWorks

Former and current SF YouthWorks participants gather in front of San Francisco City Hall

After rejection by Best Buy, Wing Stop, Target, and a long list of other places where 16-year-old Sebastian Millan had hoped to find work, he felt lost. “Nobody was trying to give me a chance,” he said. Evelyn Ramirez felt that same hopelessness when looking for her first job at 16. Despite casting a wide net at neighborhood mom-and-pop stores, big corporations, and fast-food restaurants, “People would look down on me: ‘You’re too young,’ ‘We’re not hiring’” she was told.

But Sebastian and Evelyn finally got the opportunity they needed. They were invited to interview with JCYC’s San Francisco YouthWorks program for high school students and were selected for paid summer internships which sparked remarkable upward trajectories.  

Sebastian landed a position at West Portal Library where he helped keep the books organized, planned video game nights for teens, and helped elders in the community improve their grasp of smartphones and computers. For Evelyn, YouthWorks was the confidence boost she needed to dream bigger. “They opened so many doors for me. They really saw my potential,” she said. Now 21 years old, she is soon to graduate from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and plans to work as a tax associate with accounting firm Ernst & Young. 

Evelyn and Sebastian are just two of the over 10,000 students from San Francisco who have been hired as interns through SF YouthWorks, a program originally founded by former SF Mayor Willie L. Brown in 1997. The goal is to provide students with a year-round, “school-to-career” internship in “a professional classroom” with city government, particularly for at-risk youth, 90% of whom come from low-income backgrounds. YouthWorks gives high school juniors and seniors a chance to apply for about 250 internships over the summer and 150 internships throughout the school year where they can be placed in dozens of city departments like the Library, Emergency Management, Recreation & Parks, or the Public Utilities Commission, to name just a few.

Despite having tremendous impact, this program and its internships are in jeopardy. The SF Human Rights Commission has proposed cutting $2 million from the current $2.4 million  YouthWorks budget for the fiscal year of 2026-2027. Associate Director of SF YouthWorks Nicole Rodriguez says that will reduce opportunities by over 80%, reducing summer internships from 250 students to less than 100 positions and all but eliminating school-year internships. The devastating proposed cuts to YouthWorks comes at a time when unemployment for youth is at its highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic and over 1,000 applicants have already applied for what could be just a fraction of the positions.

Mentors of the YouthWorks program agree that the benefits go both ways. While young people gain exposure, skills, and income, those in city departments gain fresh ideas, youth perspective, and potential new recruits. Agencies like the Department of Public Works and the Public Utilities Commission have even offered youth interns jobs after they finish high school.

Judy Ferretti in the IT department of the Human Services Agency has mentored dozens of YouthWorks interns in her position as a Desktop Supervisor over the last 8 years. A recent batch of interns helped Judy’s office meet a critical deadline of replacing laptops for 2,000 city employees. “The youth came in and we showed them how we configure the laptops, asset track and troubleshoot. Ileana Pulu, the Youth Services Manager for San Francisco Public Library, oversees the program for interns like Sebastian who are placed in library branches around the city. By having so many young people in libraries, Pulu said they’ve “received tons of helpful feedback about library programs.”

Though Sebastian and Evelyn have already benefitted from their YouthWorks experience, both have joined hundreds of other former and current participants to fight for the program. On April 15, YouthWorks participants and supporters gathered at City Hall torally against the proposed budget cuts, and Sebastian and Evelyn spoke passionately about the opportunities the workforce development program provided them.

Though Sebastian and Evelyn have already benefitted from their YouthWorks experience, both have joined hundreds of other former and current participants to fight for the program. On April 15, YouthWorks participants and supporters gathered at City Hall to rally against the proposed budget cuts, and Sebastian and Evelyn spoke passionately about the opportunities the workforce development program provided them.

Joining the fight for YouthWorks, on April 22, the San Francisco Youth Commission, a body of 17 young San Franciscans who advise the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors, passed a resolution rejecting the $2 million in cuts to YouthWorks. Youth Commission Chair and former YouthWorks intern Gabby Listana, spoke at the recent hearing with the Budget and Appropriations Committee: “As a low-income person, not only have I been able to earn money, because of the experiences I had in this program, in the fall I’m going to college for political science and hope to work in public service in the future. The Youth Commission has hosted numerous public forums where young people have expressed the need for more job opportunities, especially as unemployment rises. To create a strong future for San Francisco, we must support the youth that will inherit our city.”

On Instagram, District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood also joined the support of this critical pathway for young people: “The program is under threat of cuts this year and must continue. It’s a vital service in our community, and I will be fighting for it alongside the youth who deserve the best our city has to offer.”

To make your voice heard to preserve these invaluable growth opportunities for young San Francisco, click here.