Columbus Urban League program celebrated with documentary of 400 students

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Teens and their families were met with a red carpet and photo shoots at a private showing of a documentary about their program Sunday.

The Columbus Urban League's Work Readiness Training University program wrapped up for the summer, and celebrated in style at Lennox Town Center.

"We had over 417 young people participate in the program this summer," Vice President Charity Martin-King said.

The program began just over 15 years ago, in an effort to provide paid, real-life work experience for teens in Columbus from low-income families and backgrounds.

"When I think about it, not everybody has a parent or a person who can make that handshake and say, 'Yeah, I know somebody who will get you a job,'" Martin-King said. "So, we provide the warm handshake for our young people."

WRTU partnered with many local organizations to provide work experience opportunities, like COSI, the U.S. Department of Natural Resources, CoverMyMeds, and more.

The Urban League said around 2,000 teens expressed interest in the program this year. More than 600 of them applied, and just over 400 were accepted.

NBC4 talked to three of those students Sunday afternoon. They all expressed gratitude and excitement about the possibility of doing the program again next year.

None of the students was prouder than 16-year-old Asalah Kamel.

"This year I got the opportunity to get my STNA. So, this is my card," Kamel said with a grin.

The high school junior now has a professional nursing aide certification. Kamel's been a part of WRTU for three years and tried something different each summer. But she said nursing has always been her calling.

"I always wanted to be a nurse when I was younger," Kamel said. "And then when I found out I could get my STNA for this program, I was like, that's the first step."

"It's an eye opener because you get to see different people work with different people," Kamel said. "They teach you a lot of different skills. They teach you how to be a leader, how to hold yourself accountable, how to, you know, be determined, stay focused."

Akilah Bayless-Sizemore is a senior at Eastmoor who participated in the "VLOG" program aimed at helping teens develop technical skills for doing media-related jobs like being a social media influencer.

"VLOG is like, a really interactive experience for the youth," Bayless-Sizemore said. "It gets us, like, the culture and environment gives us the opportunity to create content and gives us the opportunity to be influencers."

"I would recommend this to everybody," Bayless-Sizemore said. "We have mentors that are like family to us. We create family with our peers and they take us to so many fun places."

Gabriel Eshun is a senior at Canal Winchester. He said he wasn't sure about the program at first, but said it's been a lot of fun getting to do things outside of what he would consider normal.

"We went on a college trip to OSU," Eshun said. "We built a robot too. So, that was fun. So, we'll help kids build, like, leadership skills and get them like, ready for, like, real life,"

All three said they've learned valuable lessons to take with them after high school and into the workforce. Eshun said he learned the most about, "Showing up to work like at the right time, follow the rules and be a good leader."

For many of the students involved, it's already paying off.

"We had a huge number of young people offered full time jobs directly from their work site experience," Martin-King said.

To check out more about the program you can visit the website here.