February 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 49

City of Seaside, California, makes an impact in
underserved communities through its Youth
Employment Program
By Vitisia Paynich
for At-Risk Youth
A
sk any team member at the Seaside Youth Resource Center
(SYRC) in California and they'll tell you that troubled teens
who walk through their doors have the potential to change
their story. Described as " a one-stop resource center for at-risk
youth and their families, " SYRC originally started as a youth program by
a nonprofit in 2014. The program transferred to the city a year later,
evolving into SYRC. During that time, the resource center was provided
$1.3 million in first-round funding from the California Gang Reduction,
Intervention and Prevention (CalGRIP) grant program as an effort to curb
violent crime and gang activity in the city's neighborhoods.
Seaside, the second-largest city in
Monterey County with a population
of nearly 34,000, already was
experiencing a dramatic uptick in
violent crime a few years prior to
SYRC's inception. To address the
growing concerns among community
members, a 35-member Blue
Ribbon Panel (renamed the Blue
Ribbon Task Force for the Prevention
of Youth Violence) - comprising
county and city agencies,
criminal justice, community-based
organizations, elected officials and
more - developed a Youth Violence
Protection Plan. This initiative
included the Seaside Youth
Resource Center designed " to give
the youth opportunities to meet the
challenges that they were facing and
provide resources to them, " says
Dan Meewis, recreation director for
City of Seaside.
SYRC's services include:
* Employment provisions, such as
job skills and life skills training,
job referral or placement and
possible internship opportunities
* Activity coordination for youth,
families, partner programs and
prospective employers
* Facilitating collaboration of and
leveraging other existing prevention-type
programs and activities
that may or may not currently
exist in the community
At SYRC, " one of the things
that we pride ourselves on [is] we
look at the human being walking
through the door, " says Ted Black,
SYRC's youth center supervisor.
" We treat everybody with respect.
And it doesn't matter what they're
going through; we're going to work
with those challenges. That ... 15-,
16-, 17-year-old child [is] probably
reaching out for some support [but]
just [doesn't] know how to go about
getting it. We want to be there - we
want to be that ear for them. "
Black, a longtime resident of
Seaside, understands the challenges
these kids face every day in their
community - whether it be problems
with drugs, alcohol, abuse,
economics or gangs. " We do have
a huge gang population out here
and a lot of the youngsters that we
work with either have someone in
the family affiliated [with a gang],
or they're teeter-tottering on being
affiliated with a gang, " he explains.
" Ted was instrumental in setting
up the youth resource center through
a variety of different programs that
he was doing...to help the kids get
off the streets, " says Meewis. He
adds that SYRC got the CalGRIP
grant " because our violence numbers
were so high, and we continued
to get that grant funding that helped
with a variety of different programs
here. " In 2017, the state changed the
name of the grant to California ViPARK
S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G | FEBR U AR Y 2 0 2 3
| Parks & Recreation
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February 2023 - Parks & Recreation

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