White House Selects 2013 YouthWorks Participant as a Champion of Change

CONTACT: Brice Freeman, MOED, 410-396-1910, bfreeman@oedworks.com

Ernest Dorsey, MOED Youth Services, 410-396-6722, edorsey@oedworks.com

White House Selects 2013 YouthWorks Participant as a Champion of Change Baltimore City’s YouthWorks participant Tiffani Cooper honored for her exemplary work and leadership during her 2013 summer employment

Baltimore, Maryland (September 25, 2013) – YouthWorks participant Tiffani Cooper and Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED) Director Karen Sitnick will be guests at the White House tomorrow as Tiffani will be honored as a Champion of Change. Nominated for serving as a positive role model highlighted by her strong performance at her YouthWorks summer job, Tiffani was selected as one of four youth chosen from nominations submitted from all over the country. She will serve on a panel with other youth champions from San Francisco, St. Louis and Chicago. They will share how their job experiences developed their work skills and prepared them for the future. “We are committed to creating vitally important employment opportunities for our future workforce to help them become successful adults and responsible citizens,” said Sitnick. “Tiffani represents thousands of Baltimore young people who have the potential to make positive contributions to our city’s employers if given the chance.” Tiffani was one of more than 5,200 teens and young adults who were offered summer jobs through Baltimore’s 2013 YouthWorks summer jobs program. This year, she worked in the facilities department at the Maryland Institute College of Art. MICA was one of 117 Hire One Youth employers – businesses who interviewed and hired older YouthWorks participants to work directly at their locations. MICA, like many Hire One Youth employers, can choose to extend high-performing participants’ employment past the summer as it did with Tiffani. She continues to work at MICA while completing her second year at the Baltimore City Community College. YouthWorks is a model program for how a local jurisdiction can support President Barack Obama’s Youth Jobs+ initiative to connect elected officials, local businesses, non-profit organizations and faith institutions to create pathways to employment for young Americans. In Baltimore City, MOED works closely with these stakeholders to create one of the strongest summer jobs programs in the nation, annually connecting thousands of young people, ages 14- 21, to job opportunities in a wide variety of work settings. The event is closed to press but will be live streamed on the White House website. To watch this event live, visit www.whitehouse.gov/live at 3:20 pm ET on September 26th. Click here to read White House press release. ###

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