Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has awarded LGBT organization Youth Pride Services (YPS) a $48,000 grant for summer jobs for young people.
The Illinois Youth Recreation Corps grant allows YPS to hire between 15-20 youth to work at local businesses for six weeks, starting July 18.
According to Frank Walker, YPS founder, the organization will be focus its summer efforts in its ongoing "Be Great" campaign, which aims to prepare LGBT youth of color for life after age 21. YPS youth will also be working on its youth-produced publication, F magazine.
Through the summer internship program, youth of color will have the opportunity to test out different jobs all summer, ranging from restaurant work to photo archiving and writing with Windy City Times.
YPS has already received over 50 applications for the program, which pays youth $8.50 an hour.
Walker said he is hoping that at least half of the summer's hires will be homeless youth. He said that he thinks the program can have a positive impact given recent controversies in Lakeview.
"I think it's perfect timing for what's going on with youth of color in that area," he said, adding that he thinks young people who don't have access to jobs or other services are more likely to get into trouble.
The Illinois Youth Recreation Corps awarded 100 organizations grants this year. The program aims to offer youth summer internship opportunities and recreational activities.
On the list of 100 awardees this year is also Project SYNCERE (Supporting Youth's Needs with Core Engineering Research Experiments), a Chicago-based non-profit that works to increase the number of under-represented people in the fields of math and science.